Another Noel Embarrassment?

Although it seems that the Noels may avoid criminal charges related to the Madoff case, it turns out that there is another situation that would cause embarrassment to most people: getting caught creating knock-offs.

Shortly before the Madoff scandal erupted, Marisa Noel Brown and two friends, Ulrica Lanaro and Lillian Stern, decided to go into the jewelry designing business under the name of Tre Labs. Never mind that Marisa did not attend design school. Or even that the costume jewelry she and her friends "created" did not reflect the Noel family's taste in expensive looking jewelry. I wondered about that when news broke that Tre's jewelry would be shown at Henri Bendel and priced from just $50.00 to $85.00. That's hardly the style of people who spent their lives pretending to be old blood, old money.

But today's news feeds brought news that Brown and her friends are accessories to crime and they are being sued by the Australian company Dinosaur Designs. Tre's copies were displayed at a trade show at the Jacob Javitz center. And to make things worse for Brown, they claim a Tre partner bought the original merchandise in their store in Nolita and have the receipts to prove it. The Tre designs, they claim, were manufactured as copies in China.

This is not the first time that the Noels have -- borrowed, shall we say? -- someone else's designs. Monica Noel sold under her own line some linens that resembled Frette's designs. I wasn't surprised because Monica loves beautiful things and even after Bernie Madoff came along with the goose that laid the golden egg, she was always looking for a good deal. Walter was an inadequate breadwinner for the lavish lifestyle she wanted, but Monica was always resourceful. She would get money from her mother and Walter would repeatedly refinance to create their picture perfect image of money and social status. She knew she could have those linens virtually duplicated for very little money in Recife, Brazil. (Note: Monica Noel the brand became better known for her children's smock dresses. Also, for the record, her linens went beyond Frette-style designs and they are beautiful. I bought a lot of them.)

Monica's daughters often tore out ads from magazines and had a local dressmaker, Cleusa (prononuced clay-OH-za) duplicate the clothes with fabric they bought from Banksville Fabrics in nearby New Canaan. This is an old trick that some European women employ in order to dress very well on a budget. When Corina got married, she had a Carolina Herrera gown copied in Brazil for her wedding. In an act of unmitigated chutzpah, she invited one of Carolina Herrera's daughters to the wedding. The spin was the exotic story that Corina was having her dress made in Brazil as part of her international wedding, which including having 3,000 roses flown from Colombia.

Monica once had a partner -- and I use this term loosely -- to help her with her design business. Her name was Deborah Cowan, a Greenwich divorcee who eventually moved to Rockport, Massachusetts. Deborah handled a lot of the grunt work of the business and eventually decided that she can do just as well for working for herself. Monica accused Deborah of stealing her designs, but that's like the pot calling the kettle black. And, apparently, it's happening with a second generation.