Bridal dressmaker JLM Couture Inc. has filed for bankruptcy in Delaware — hit hard by the disputes with a landlord and a former designer as well as by the pandemic, WWD reported. Already the company — which makes bridal-related dresses under the Allison Webb, Lazaro, and Hayley Paige brands, among others — had cut back its operations significantly, shifting down from a workforce of 70 in 2020 to 21 employees today. Leading the company was Joseph L. Murphy, who founded JLM in 1988 and became chief executive officer and controlling shareholder in the mid-’90s, according to a declaration that was part of the chapter 11 filings. Murphy said that the company was on the “verge of insolvency” when he took the reins, but that he was able to raise new equity and set up new lines of credit and expand the business. In 2012, JLM expanded the luxury portion of the business, adding the Hayley Paige line as well as a West Hollywood flagship. But the pandemic weighed heavily on the bridal business generally as well as on JLM and by 2021 the relationship with the brand’s designer — Hayley Paige Gutman — had broken down into a nasty legal dispute over Gutman’s use of the Hayley Paige name professionally and access to an Instagram account. While a court largely sided with JLM and Gutman ultimately changed her name to Cheval, the battle weighed on the company. “The debtor’s operations were primarily affected by the active and contentious litigation with one of its former designers,” Murphy said. “The breach of contract by this designer has substantially hurt the company’s sales, and the legacy costs associated with the designer’s operation could not be reduced quickly enough to offset this damage."
