A top earning Latvian beauty is being sued by her former bosses who say they put her on the road to stardom but she broke her contract with them by jumping to a new agency.
In Manhattan Supreme Court papers, Men Women N.Y. Model Management charge that Ginta Lapina, a baby faced blonde, concocted an excuse to break her contract with them by claiming last month that the agency tricked her into doing a low-brow photo shoot for a European hair product.
Lapina sued the company, known as Women NY, in federal court.
Women NY shot back Tuesday with its own lawsuit, asking the state courts to order Lapina to come home to them where she has 16 more months on her contract.
'Lapina is a unique and irreplaceable talent,' Women NY says in court papers.
It quotes models.com, an industry publication, as saying that 'with her doll-like features and posing skill, Ginta Lapina appeals to the full range of money clients from haute stores to high end beauty.'
Women NY says it will suffer 'irreparable' financial harm 'if top models such as Lapina are permitted to freely breach their fixed term contracts.'
The company says Lapina, 25, has become 'one of the most sought-after models' because of the work it has done in the last six years, promoting her talents and building her career.
Lapina officially switched last week to DNA Model Management.
In her federal lawsuit filed in late August, Lapina said she was duped into doing an advertising campaign for Schwarzkopf professional hair products after her agency told her that a photo shoot in Paris would be used to promote Karl Lagerfeld.
Lapina, who has modeled for the world's top designers including DKNY, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Caroline Herrera, Anna Sui, Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs, said Women NY never got her permission to use the her photos in shampoo ads.
Lapina said the incident 'diluted' her brand. And, she claims, they never paid her for the use of the photos either, she said.
She was paid just the one-time fee for participating in the photo shoot - $19,700 - not the six-figure sum usually paid to a top supermodel.
Lapina is demanding over $1 million in damages and a court order barring Schwarzkopf from using her pictures.
Women NY says in the new state papers that 'Lapina and DNA maliciously acted in bad faith to manufacture a false pretext for Lapina to breach' her contract by having her file the federal lawsuit.
Neither Lapina nor a spokesman for DNA could be reached for comment.
Lapina is married to businessman Adam Hock, 49, who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after he was involved in a 2012 nightclub brawl with Pierre Casiraghi of the royal family of Monaco and Spyros Niarchos, grandson of Greek shipping magnate Stavros Livanos.
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