It should be illegal to look as good as Andrea Mary Marshall does on her carefully curated Instagram feed.
Perhaps soon, it will be.
On Wednesday, the 44-year-old fashion designer — who heads up Salon 1884, a luxury fashion brand that has dressed Julia Roberts, Katie Holmes, and Cynthia Erivo — arrived at New York County Criminal Court for a pre-trial hearing.
The glamorous former model and elite party fixture faces an ugly accusation. According to charges filed by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Marshall bilked New York’s best-in-class garment workers out of $54,000 in just three years.
She has pled “not guilty” to all charges.
A high fashion fall
In his filing, Bragg alleges that Marshall coerced former employees into working up to 100 hours a week and then gaslit them about payment.
It seemed like a cut-and-dry case of an entitled socialite trying to pull a fast one on hardworking New Yorkers, many of them immigrants striving to feed their families.
It was also a shocking fall for the Boston native, who was lauded for both her fashion and art in elite fashion publications like Vogue and Elle, and even dated Kate Moss’s ex-husband, Jefferson Hack.
In a New York Times profile that was even more glowing than her skin, Marshall even confessed that she’d added “Mary” to her name in order to sound more Catholic.
But according to numerous former associates, Marshall’s behavior was hardly Pope-like.
Former employees, friends, and fellow Vogue-approved designers paint a picture of a brilliant but financially unsavvy woman who — in the words of one allegedly swindled former employee — “believed more money would appear… and when it didn’t, she froze. She just doesn’t know how to handle this.”
But Marshall’s lawyers, Anna Estevao and Justine Harris, told The Post that the case is more complicated.
Unpaid promises
“There is so much more to this story,” the attorneys told The Post exclusively in a statement.
“Ms. Marshall is a solo female entrepreneur and artist who did her best under challenging circumstances. She paid all of her workers above minimum wage, more than she paid herself, in addition to buying them meals and Ubers home when they worked late. To the extent she experienced cash flow issues and fell behind in her obligations, she remains committed to paying her outstanding debts.”
Furthermore, they allege that Marshall herself is the victim of theft by “major fashion retailers not paying on time” for orders they’d placed — and that the D.A. is attempting to “make an example of a struggling business owner” with inflated criminal charges.
“She’s getting screwed by a larger system,” says a former Prada fashion executive who now consults for smaller brands. “Retailers take all your clothes. They say they’ll pay and then they don’t. And if they declare bankruptcy, like Saks, then you don’t get paid. She’s basically broke even though she did everything right.”
So is Andrea Mary Marshall a hapless fashion victim… or just a common thief whose finger-pointing is obscured by a gleaming gel manicure?
Desperate texts
In June, Bragg and his team presented damning evidence against the former model.
Allegations leveled against her include wage theft, exploitative working conditions where Marshall withheld employee time cards in order to manipulate overtime hours, and consecutive overnight shifts that sometimes totaled 100-hour weeks.
Marshall now faces counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, Effect of Failure to Secure Compensation, Failure to Pay Wages in Accordance with the Labor Law — combined charges that could carry between 1 and 10 years of jail time.
As part of their case, the D.A.’s office obtained emotional text messages from former garment workers, many of them vulnerable immigrants.
In one message, a garment worker wrote, “Good afternoon, miss. Please can you pay me something. I need to send it to Ecuador. It’s for my son. Please, I’m asking you. He’s sick.”
Another read, “Miss Andrea, please can you pay me half. I really need to send money to Ecuador for my children. I really need it, miss, please help me.”
In response to a third, separate text begging for payment, Marshall wrote back, “You are not allowed in my office. Give me your address and I will mail you a check.”
According to the Department of Labor, a check never came.
Lawyers insist some claims from Bragg are misleading, including the allegation that she “allegedly failed to carry workers’ compensation insurance, which is required by law to protect employees in the event of a workplace injury.”
In a statement to The Post, Marshall’s legal team said that “well before she was charged, she secured her manufacturer’s license, workers’ compensation, and disability insurance policies—which remain active today.” (These policies became active in 2025, according to public records.)
Saks Education
“What she did was wrong,” says a luxury fashion executive with personal knowledge of Marshall’s business. “But she was doing over a million dollars in retail sales, collectively, and the stores withheld payment from her… They took all her clothes and withheld all her money. The stress over this has been eating her alive.”
The executive said that Andrea Mary Marshall became “a pawn” in this high-stakes game of hot potato. “There’s no excuse to not pay your team. But if retailers like Neiman Marcus paid Andrea on time, she would not be in the position she’s in.”
“We’re all living on promises,” added a CFDA-nominated New York designer who is friendly with Marshall and who could not be named because of their own pending case against the mega-retailer.
They told The Post that their spouse’s successful business is the only reason they can currently make payroll. “I’m scared to know how much money I lost from that bankruptcy.”
But sources familiar with the deal between Salon 1884 and Neiman Marcus say that in Andrea Mary Marshall’s case, this can’t be the reason for her financial troubles.
For one thing, Salon 1884 was only carried at the luxury retailer until the spring of 2025 — nearly a year before its parent company, Saks Global, filed for Chapter 11.
There is a difference between running out of money and allegedly manipulating an employee’s timesheet so you don’t have to pay them at all.
And some former employees bristle at Marshall’s continued public appearances wearing designer labels while claiming she can’t pay her debts. (“The Cartier Love bracelet she’s still wearing is a terrible choice,” said one former staffer who is still owed funds. “Sell it and pay people.”)
Emma Gage, a downtown designer for the label Melke that serves an overlapping clientele to Marshall’s, told The Post she doesn’t know how anyone could short their shirt-makers for years without knowing it was happening.
Gage told The Post she has never met or worked with Marshall, but makes similar bespoke pieces for weddings, red carpets, and other special occasions, often with a shared pool of skilled laborers, many of them immigrants.
“You are sitting with these people every day. They help keep your brand alive. You pay them no matter what it takes.”
Gage explained that to make one custom dress or suit, it would cost about $1,000 in labor, including draping, fitting, pattern cutting, and garment construction.
“If someone owes $54,000 and they’re making custom outfits, that’s 54 times they’ve done this behavior. That’s theft, plain and simple.”
Lawyers say Marshall has been, and will continue, making “good faith efforts to comply with complicated regulations” and that the D.A.’s highly public campaign to turn her into a convicted criminal is “massively unjust and unfair” considering her ongoing attempts at reparations, and past precedent that would cite these violations as a civil matter instead of a jail sentence.
Courting the cool crowd
Marshall’s court case is expected to be tried in early 2027.
Until then, she continues to court the fashion world’s approval.
“Six months ago, she asked me to work for her brand, but she said she’d have to pay me in clothes because she had no money,” a well-known fashion consultant told The Post.
“She said she was having issues getting retailers to pay her for orders. I wish I could have helped — she’s super talented. But I can’t work for free.”
Marshall may also be sending cryptic messages about the value and skill of her own handiwork via social media.
At 4 a.m. on the day after her court check-in, the designer took to Instagram, where she posted a close-up video of herself sewing at a metal table.
She did a skilled gathering stitch on a sheet of raw cotton, artfully arranging the fabric every few minutes with her bare hands.
On one wrist, she wore the Cartier “Love” bangle referenced by her former colleagues. If it’s real, it retails for just under $8,000 — 15% of what Alvin Bragg alleges she owes in court.
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