Former Gucci store employee files legal action for the second time this year

A former employee at a Gucci store in Chicago has filed a civil class action lawsuit accusing him of fraud and unfair business practices.

Tracy Cohen, who worked at the Chicago store for 18 years, filed suit against Kering Americas and Gucci America in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, on Wednesday. She is demanding a jury trial. Cohen joined the company in August 2006 and left in October 2023. During her tenure, she said she generated more than $50 million in sales and was the Chicago store’s top-performing employee for six consecutive years from 2017 to 2023.

This is the second time this year that Cohen has taken legal action against both parties. In a lawsuit filed in late January in the Northern District of Illinois, she claimed she was subjected to discriminatory comments about her age and mental health while employed at Gucci.

Representatives from Gucci America and Kering did not respond to media inquiries Thursday afternoon.

Cohen claimed she was trained to perform a “sales ceremony” when presenting bags made of exotic leathers. She would put on black gloves and explain to the customer that “the skins were ethically sourced, the snakes and crocodiles were not tortured, the snake skins were obtained through a natural molting process, and the skins are a byproduct of the meat industry. Additionally, we only work with suppliers who have a certified humane treatment of animals.”

Her “trusted customers” then “relied on her information and, as a result, she sold numerous Gucci products made from ‘exotic’ crocodile/alligator and python leather, including, among other things, men’s loafers, women’s sandals, wallets, luggage and handbags,” the lawsuit states.

Cohen’s filing also notes that Kering Americas and Gucci America have made their codes of ethics public, claiming that ethics are at the heart of how we do business and that they have a “strong moral commitment” and a “culture of integrity.”

In her lawsuit filed this week, Cohen claimed she would never have deceived her customers or personally purchased python-skin bags and shoes over several years if she had known about the alleged practices of violently killing the pythons.

The reason for her latest lawsuit was a report on an investigation by the Asia division of the animal rights organization “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” into two python farms in Thailand that allegedly supplied exotic skins to Kering-owned Caravel and had uncovered “abusive python killing practices.” The two farms are said to be the Sisatchanalai Python Farm and Closed-Cycle Breeding International.

Cohen is seeking emotional distress damages, which can only be awarded by a jury, as well as compensation for the exotic leather Gucci products she purchased and possibly those sold to her customers, according to one of her lawyers, Tamara Holder-DeMaio. Cohen’s four python purchases — two pairs of shoes and two bags — were valued at less than $10,000, Holder-DeMaio said.

As for Cohen’s earlier lawsuit, which involves both human trafficking and overtime discrimination, she is seeking maximum damages for the numerous counts, her attorney said. Cohen’s $300,000 monthly sales goal “was humanly impossible to achieve while working at the store,” she added. A status report for that case is due July 1, and the first court date for the class action filing is set for October, Holder-DeMaio said.

This week’s filing said Cohen “truly loved selling Gucci products” and that her “dream was to one day get a promotion that would get her a job in Italy where she could work for Gucci.”