Top label owes us thousands, say staff who made dresses adored by Princess Kate and Meghan Markle
It’s the luxury London fashion house that designed some of the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Sussex’s most famous dresses, as well as the dress worn by former Tory cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt to King Charles’ coronation.
But glamorous brand Safiyaa is facing claims it owes fabric workers who make many of its dazzling clothes tens of thousands of pounds from a supplier that runs a factory in Türkiye.
Fifty cutters and machinists are said to owe up to three months of unpaid wages and redundancy money, allegedly due due to the sudden closure of the Istanbul studio where they worked in April.
According to The Mail on Sunday, 14 staff from the supplier were said to still owe between £2,600 and £9,000, while others received some of the money due after a payment Safiyaa described as a ‘good faith gesture’.
Last night angry former staff accused the company, which sells dresses for up to £5,000 each, of leaving them unemployed and struggling to support their families.
Supervisor Kadir Ateş, 43, who cut the fabric for Dame Penny’s coronation dress, told the MoS: ‘We want to defend people’s rights and justice and we want the Royal Family in the UK to know what happened to us. Maybe they can do something to help us.
‘We will follow this matter until the end. We only want what we deserve, nothing more. ‘We feel we are being exploited.’
Safiyaa said the Turkish factory is an independent third-party supplier and has sole responsibility for its workforce, including wage payments.
Safiyaa created the £1,295 red dress worn by Meghan, who attended a concert with Prince Harry at the Royal Albert Hall in March 2020.
Meanwhile, the Princess of Wales wore a purple dress by Safiyaa at Wimbledon last year.
Founded in 2011 by German-born Daniela Karnuts, the company also created the £1,295 red dress Meghan and Prince Harry wore while attending a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in March 2020; this was one of the last Royal engagements before leaving the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, the Princess of Wales wore a purple dress by the designer at Wimbledon last year.
Ms Karnuts, 42, who sells her dresses in a private showroom in Mayfair, initially had them all tailored in a second-floor atelier in a back street in Istanbul. Staff say they will visit the factory three or four times a year.
Ateş, who started cutting fabric for Safiyaa in 2017, said that the salaries of the staff were paid on time and that they earned relatively ‘generous’ salaries of approximately 50,000 lira, or £880 per month.
However, the problems ended in 2019 when the operation of the workshop was transferred to Atelier Nouveau Tekstil Ltd. It started with the takeover by . Workers say the factory is run by Jalil Teja, who they claim is the nephew of Karnuts’ husband, Akbar Shamji, a former bankrupt crypto investor.
Turkish company records seen by the MoS show Mr Teja listed his address as a property in Mayfair, which is also linked to Ms Karnuts and Mr Shamji. Separate records reveal that the firm was controlled by Mr. Shamji’s former business partner, Claudio Ernesto Eusebio Alburquerque.
‘Money problems started after his nephew showed up. He was living in Germany, but he used to come to see the factory,” Mr. Ateş added.
‘We were supposed to get our salary on the 5th of the month, but sometimes we only get 10 thousand liras, and a few days later we get another 10 thousand liras.
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Former Tory cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt dressed as King George III in a Safiyaa dress. Charles and Queen arrive at Westminster Abbey for Camilla’s coronation
Holly Willoughby is a picture of elegant simplicity in Safiyaa’s £1,250 pale blue one-shoulder column.
‘Sometimes salaries were delayed for two months’. “He will come, don’t worry,” they said.’ However, workers began to be laid off and the factory closed in April.
Ateş said he was promised payment of 456,000 lira (£8,000) within two months, including one-and-a-half months’ unpaid salary, holiday and severance pay, but received nothing.
He and other former staff texted Ms Karnuts, urging her to pay. He allegedly replied to Mr. Ateş in June: ‘Things will be fine.’
Safiyaa confirmed that Ms Karnuts had funded some discretionary payments to staff who owed wages from Atelier Nouveau, but that this was an act of goodwill, not an admission of liability.
Mr. Teja provided consulting services to Safiyaa, but he was not an employee and the label never owned or operated Atelier Nouveau or employed any employees, Safiyaa said. It was also stated that the decision to close the factory and lay off workers was taken by Atelier Nouveau.
Mr. Teja and Mr. Eusebio Alburquerque could not be contacted for comment.
