After a long legal battle that stripped her of her name and brand, the bridal designer is making a return to the industry with a new collection and a new deal.
In 2011, Hayley Paige, a then-unknown 24-year-old bridal designer, began her career in bridal fashion with JLM Couture in New York. She went on to build a bridal brand synonymous with dreamy, modern gowns — until she lost her rights to it.
“I had a false sense of security,” said Ms. Paige, now 39, who had signed a contract with JLM Couture, a wedding wear designing, manufacturing and distributing company, back then without having a lawyer review it. “It gave them the right for my name to be trademarked because it was the name of the collection.”
In 2015, in accordance with the contract terms, a three-year extension kicked in. (During that time, she got married in 2015 and divorced in 2018.) By March of 2019, she started negotiating a new contract with a lawyer, “thinking this is going to be easy. I was bringing in licensing deals and getting influencer opportunities,” she said of her added value to the brand. “I’d outgrown my original position. A reset needed to happen.”
Negotiations continued until December 2020, when Ms. Paige was hit with an unexpected 100-plus page lawsuit from JLM Couture, claiming trademark infringement, violation of the noncompete agreement, and the promoting of other companies without the brand’s permission. “It even claimed they owned my name,” Ms. Paige said. An emergency hearing was granted two days later. Both sides hired litigation teams.
Ms. Paige, whose legal name is Hayley Paige Gutman, said she felt victimized “when a federal judge ruled in 2020 that I could no longer use my name in any business, commerce or to publicly identify myself because of ownership of using the trademark.” She added that she also “lost the right to control my social media accounts. Then they prevented me from designing wedding dresses.”
In October 2023, JLM Couture filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced in a news release that they would be restructuring the business. Ms. Paige never stopped fighting. In May, after a four-year public legal battle, Ms. Paige regained the use of her name and brand in a court-approved settlement.
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