David Lipman — the ad guru whose eponymous high-fashion agency suddenly shuttered in 2013, leaving “dozens of stunned employees out on the street,” The Post reported — has revealed he was attacked by a mysterious man with a 2-by-4 when the shop went belly-up.
On Sept. 25, 2013, a day after the firm — which counted Dior and Fendi as clients and worked with Kate Moss and Angelina Jolie — filed for bankruptcy, its chairman, Lipman, returned to its Meatpacking District offices to meet with accountants. That’s when, DuJour magazine reports, a white van pulled up and a man Lipman didn’t recognize jumped out with a 2-by-4 and bashed him in the head. Lipman told the mag, “I went down . . . he started kicking me and calling me names.” According to DuJour, the incident left Lipman with “a large scar across his right cheek” after the attacker drove away.
But Lipman told Page Six, “That’s not true. I have a small scar that had nothing at all to do with that.” But the bankruptcy “left me with ‘scars of life,’ heavy deep ones.” He never filed a police report. “The last thing I was thinking of was going to the police,” he told us. He figures the attacker was “somebody who didn’t get paid. There were a lot of angry people. I still have nightmares that will never go away.”
The shutdown was due to financial issues at his agency’s holding company — although he said, “I blame myself.” He told us of the beating, “My lawyer had said, ‘Don’t go near the office.’ I said, ‘What could happen?’ ” After the attack, “someone ran over to help,” but Lipman later “saw that same van twice on the way to my house.”
Today, he’s launched a leaner outfit, tentatively titled Creative Brands Craftsmanship and working with Trinity Limited brands Gieves & Hawkes and Kent & Curwen, which just signed a deal with David Beckham.
He’s also working on a memoir. One former employee, former Rangers star Sean Avery, was owed $229,000 when the firm closed. But Lipman was just at his wedding — “We’ve been and remain good friends.”