Lauren Odes is accusing her former employer of firing her for being too attractive. Native Intimates, a Manhattan lingerie boutique, reportedly told Ms. Odes that she was too good looking and too well endowed to work for them anymore.
Odes began working in data entry and shipping for the company in late April and by the first of May she was terminated. She claims that the company's owner, an Orthodox Jew, was said to not approve of her work attire.
"When I was first told that I was 'too hot' and that my breasts were too large I was shocked," said Odes in a statement
Odes said she had inquired about what was appropriate work attire for the company. Instead of providing her with a direct answer, she claims she was told to observe what others wore and decide on her own.
"The dress varied from very casual athletic wear to business dress," Odes said.
She added that she wore "very covered up attire" to work and said that it may not have been the clothes that got her fired, but instead it was her well-endowed body. Odes claims that she had once been advised by an employee to think about taping her breast down.
Odes is being represented by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred who represented a similar case in 2010, of a banker who alleged that she was fired for being too sexy.
Allred held a press conference in mid-May where she mentioned that complaints had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New York. The complaint stated that Odes "was simply fired for being attractive and for not conforming to the religious strictures imposed by top management, apparently for having female body parts, despite having ably performed her professional duties."
Odes is claiming that Native Intimates has discriminated both on a gender and religious basis. She stated, "I do not feel an employer has the right to impose their religious beliefs on me when I'm working in a business that's not a synagogue, but sells things with hearts on the female genitals and boy shorts for women that say hot in the buttocks area."
