Top fashion world art director Fabien Baron and his stylist wife, Ludivine Poiblanc, have filed a lawsuit against Interview Magazine, Page Six has exclusively learned, alleging Baron saved the “imperiled” magazine then was stiffed to the tune of about $600,000.
It’s just the latest financial blow to the publication founded by Andy Warhol in 1969, following a recent dispute with its Soho landlord and another lawsuit filed by a former top exec.
Baron — the former creative director of Calvin Klein who heads ad agency Baron & Baron — last month resigned from Interview after nearly 10 years as editorial director, we reported.
In court papers filed Wednesday, Baron’s lawyers allege that in 2009, “Defendants hired Fabien to rescue a then-imperiled Interview Magazine after the abrupt departure of its last creative director, which Fabien did, upping its circulation to over 200,000 during his tenure.”
The suit adds that Baron “personally secured” at least 40 illustrious contributors — from photographers to makeup artists — but, while “their magazine flourished editorially under Fabien’s leadership . . . defendants have been completely derelict in fulfilling their legal requirement to remunerate” him.
Baron alleges that Interview — owned by mogul and art mega-collector Peter Brant’s Brant Publications — agreed to pay him $450,000 per year plus business expenses in 2010, but that he’s owed over $500,000 from invoices between 2015 and 2018, while Poiblanc’s owed another $66,000 as a stylist, coming to $602,690.23. Baron, who’s worked for Interview at three different times over the years, submitted a letter of resignation April 2, stating, “When we started this partnership more than 10 years ago, we had your assurance that financially speaking we would start with a clean slate and that you would settle all outstanding claims. The financial challenges were not resolved and continue to plague the day-to-day operations of the magazine. We brought in a roster of highly respected collaborators, all of whom are owed substantial sums of money.” Interview did not comment.