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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/thevintagebonita on 2025-04-20 21:48:23+00:00.

TL;DR: Imagine if Mean Girls and The Devil Wears Prada had a messy little baby in stripper heels and a Marilyn Monroe wig… and that baby grew up, started a fashion brand, then set it on fire from the inside out. That’s the energy we’re working with here.

Pinup Girl Clothing looked like the dream. Body positive, inclusive, empowering. The dresses, tops, pants, jumpsuits slapped. The community was loud and loyal. It felt like more than just a brand, it felt like a movement. I am purposely not linking to the brand because this woman doesn’t deserve your interested traffic. So let’s be real, this is the story of a brand that built a cult following, climbed to the top of the vintage world then belly flopped straight into a pit of drama. Let’s get into it.

The Rise of PUG

In the early 2000s, Pinup Girl Clothing was a brand new shiny thing that people couldn’t take their eyes off of because they’d never seen anything like it. Laura Byrnes launched the brand with some story about designing clothes for strippers, which… sure, I guess that makes sense when she had no design or fashion experience. The brand really caught on, though and Pinup Girl Clothing carved out a lane for every retro loving chica who wanted vintage style but couldn’t find it in a world where everthing vintage was (and kind of still is) a 26" waist.

PUG was giving vintage, but sexier. For women who’d never seen themselves in fashion before, especially in a scene run by skinny white girls, that was everything. It like changed people’s lives overnight.

If you were into burlesque, rockabilly, retro photoshoots or just liked your clothes with a little extra flair because you’re an extra person (like me), you knew PUG. It wasn’t mainstream and, honestly, it didn’t need to be. The fanbase was small but loud and they lived for every new drop. The vibe was glamorous but still felt like something you could touch. The models looked like real people and like you constantly felt this sense of belonging to something and that felt fucking good.

The fans of this brand put the owner on a pedastal and she went super power hungry mode all while claiming her husband was abusive and stealing money from her. Things seemed like they were going pretty awesome from the outside but the inside was like built of cardboard and tape.

The Cracks Begin to Show

By 2017, the sparkle of this pretty started to wear off. On the outside, PUG still looked like the dream but it was already startibng to get to full meltdown mold with accusations flying everywhere and lawsuits piled up so here’s a few:

Listrak Inc. v. Pin Up Girl Clothing case #: 19GDCV00011National Commercial Recovery Inc. v. PUGF

Employees were getting let go left and right and they started talking about how crazy shit was for them working at this company and the worst part was like every single person called this their dream job. Whole departments just disappeared and even this one girl I’m in the middle of interviewing told me, that she was running an entire brand while the company kept pretending to be some buzzing. I was told that even the owner’s eldest daughter quit like that’s what this is about.

In another wild case, Laura Byrnes didn’t pay an employee who went out in public and talked about the poor situation that the fashion industry of Los Angeles was in regards to paying people. This woman was an immigrant mother of three and when Laura Byrnes didn’t pay her, she took her to court and won. Laura Byrnes, on the other hand, didn’t accept this and went to sue the Department of Labor to get out of it, not once but fucking twice, losing both times.

And just to sprinkle a little more chaos on top, Laura Byrnes started calling herself the “Supreme Overlord.”

That’s not a joke. She gave herself a full on villain name like she was auditioning for the next Marvel phase. I wish I was kidding.

Culture Wars and Collapse

So it wasn’t just the money getting fumbled all over the place. The brand started crashing and burning on the cultural side too and alienated an entire group of customers.

One of the worst flops in the collection in this time frame was called Opium Dreams. It looked like someone just decided to get all the Asian motifs they could find and put them on a dress and sell it. These were like stereotypical Asian prints, zero cultural awareness and a heavy dose of orientalist nonsense. Like, who looked at this and thought, “Yes, let’s run this.”

Right after that drama failed to land, there was a Chinese New Year-themed drop that crashed and burned.

People called it out, and rightfully so. They said, “Maybe don’t do this.” but instead of apologizing or learning anything, Laura Byrnes came back with the wildest response. She said it was fine because, wait for it, one of her employees was Korean.

Not Chinese. Korean. Apparently, that was supposed to make it okay. Because in her world, naming one Asian person on payroll means you get a cultural appropriation hall pass.

The internet and fan/customer base was not having it. In a first of many boycotts, and a petition started making the rounds. People were like, “Ma’am. We came here for dresses, not racism.”

Longtime fans saw it for what it was. And this was also the first time that Laura Byrnes started banning customers from the company’s social media and painted herself to be a victim in all of this. She even tried to pick physical fights with customers.

Check the receipts here:

[Proudly going down in history]

[Getting silenced on socials]

[Black models trotted like slaves at auction]

All that wasn’t even a tip on an iceburg of crazy.

The Micheline Pitt Lawsuit

This is where things start to take a turn for the worst and in some cases the brand could never overcome this in the eyes of some of its regular customers. Micheline Pitt, former VP and Creative Director and one of the brand’s most recognizable faces, had a very public falling out with Laura Byrnes. In a wild twist after Micheline left the company quietly, she noticed that Laura Byrnes continued to use her designs and artwork after she peaced out.

In 2017, all the lawsuit issues were settled out of court but, of course, that wasn’t thend because Laura Byrnes could not let this shit go. She started private facebook groups, texts and chats dedicated to talking shit about Micheline Pitt, claiming she was the victim and everyone should believe her. What people participating in this didn’t know was that there was a non-disparagement agreement as part of the settlement and Laura wasn’t allowed to talk about Micheline at all.

When Micheline found out about all of this, because, of course she did, she took Laura straight back to court.

Laura’s defense was barely enough to acknowledge. She presented her version of the story in which she claimed that she was the victim. The court was like, “Cool story, where’s your proof?” countering Micheline’s 37 exhibits documented and continued harassment.

WHen that didn’t work, Laura claimed it was about free speech and her First Amendment rights were being violated to say whatever she wanted. In full public record, the judge was like, nope, that’s not how a non-dispargement thing works. You agreed to be civil.

The judge looked at Micheli…

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