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September, 29th 2004
 After exiting the fashion world in 2000, South Beach fashion guru Michele Pommier declared last year that she was back.
She opened Michele Pommier Management on Lincoln Road, promising to mentor a select new breed of super models. The New York Post buzzed, about a woman whose name is instantly recognizable in the modeling world: ``Agencies with Miami branches are extremely nervous.''
But now Pommier's comeback is in jeopardy. The reason: a competing agency claims that she effectively sold her name to it four years ago.
In a lawsuit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Miami, the powerhouse agency Wilhelmina Models Miami demands that she stop using the Pommier name or get out of the modeling business.
The suit raises a novel legal question: Can someone be stopped from using her own name in a business?
It is also one more battle in a long-running war between Pommier and the Krassner Group, owners of the Miami office of Wilhelmina, the biggest modeling agency in the world. The suit marks the third time in four years that the parties have found themselves in a South Florida court.
In 2000, the privately held Krassner Group, which already owned a 50 percent stake in Michele Pommier Models, paid $1.5 million to Pommier for the remaining shares in her company, according to court filings. It reflagged Michele Pommier Models under the Wilhelmina name but kept the Pommier corporate name and contends that it still uses the name commercially.
Now that Pommier has opened Michele Pommier Management, the Krassner Group alleges, the new company is creating costly confusion and must be stopped.
''My clients bought her modeling agency for a million and a half dollars,'' said Richard C. Wolfe, the Krassner Group's lawyer. 'There are no assets but the name. But she says, `Screw you. I am going to open my own agency down the street.' ''
Checks intended for Wilhelmina Models Miami are allegedly going to Michele Pommier Management by mistake, the suit contends. The Krassner Group maintains that the situation confuses models as to which agency is employing them.
Pommier was unavailable for comment, but her lawyer, Jim Miller, called the suit ''ludicrous.'' Miller, who promised a lengthy court battle, said there can't be any confusion because the Krassner Group has operated its modeling agency under the Wilhelmina name for years.
He added that the Krassner Group did not acquire Pommier's name when it bought her modeling agency.
BORN WITH IT
''This is their effort to stop her from doing business,'' said Miller, a partner with the firm of Akerman Senterfitt in Miami. ``They are the ones who don't compete fairly, and they now want to stop her from using her name. They didn't purchase her name. It is the name she was born with.''
The lawsuit is but the latest volley in the ongoing tiff between rival agencies located just blocks from each other: Michele Pommier Management is at 420 Lincoln Rd., Wilhelmina Models MiamiMichele Pommier Models at 927 Lincoln Rd.
After Pommier sold her agency to the Krassner Group in February 2000, things quickly went awry for her. As part of the deal, she'd agreed to a noncompete agreement. By May 2000, the Krassner Group had sued her in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for violating the deal.
That case was settled by April 2002, yet in February 2003 they were back in court. This time, the Krassner Group sued Pommier in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for failing to abide by the settlement agreement. That suit was dismissed and is now before the Third District Court of Appeal.
UNQUESTIONED VALUE
All sides agree that the Pommier name is valuable in the industry. She was a successful model in her own right, featured in Virginia Slims' ''You've Come a Long Way, Baby,'' ad campaign. And from 1982 to 2000, she built an agency that discovered the likes of supermodels Christy Turlington and Elsa Benitez.
Some even credit Pommier for putting Miami on the international fashion map.
''Her
source: Miami Herald
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