Star designer Ramdane Touhami targeted by complaint for moral harassment

Ramdane Touhami, a French designer with an international reputation, is the target of a complaint from a former employee alleging moral harassment and undeclared work, AFP learned on Monday from a source close to the case.

In the complaint, filed in Paris on August 21, of which AFP has been informed, the former employee complains of repeated insults shouted in front of his colleagues, as well as threats from Ramdane Touhami, a luxury goods jack-of-all-trades. There was also talk of undeclared and unpaid overtime.

“Our client was a victim and witness of the brutal and destructive management practiced in this company,” commented Arthur Gaulier, the plaintiff’s lawyer, to AFP. The former employee, who “had the courage to denounce the intimidation, insults, and humiliations inflicted by Ramdane Touhami on his employees,” according to Gaulier, is also being assisted byMorgane Dolo, who is handling the industrial tribunal part of the case.

Contacted by AFP, Touhami declined to comment.

Touhami – who poses alongside celebrities such as Britney Spears, Jackie Chan, and Tyler, the Creator on his Instagram – “makes life hell for his employees,” wrote Mediapart in mid-March, based on some fifteen pseudonymous testimonials.

Twice-weekly meetings are “without exception an ordeal: reproaches, insults, black anger,” reports a witness to the online media.

The list of this entrepreneur’s remarks, reported by current and former employees, includes: “You have two solutions: either you commit suicide, or you go back on the attack,” “the guy with glasses over there (if) he was next to me, it was a headbutt,” “do you know how much the bitch who does the morning service costs?”

Touhami dismisses these accusations in Mediapart: “These are expressions I use, but not for my employees. We’ve told you some bullshit.”

The question of overtime also comes up in the online medium. “A colleague told me that no one asked for overtime pay because we were in a dictatorship here,” says one witness.

Described as a “brand guru” by the Financial Times, Touhami made his name through his design studio, Art Recherche Industrie (ARI), launched to cover “all the aesthetic fields of a brand, from architecture to philosophy,” according to the official website.

Touhami was notably endorsed by luxury giant LVMH, which acquired one of his structures, Officine Universelle Buly, specialized in perfumes and cosmetics, in 2021 for 179 million euros, according to press reports.