Four supermodels fronted Fashion Cafe — it went bust in three years

Fashion Cafe opened at Rockefeller Center in 1995, the brainchild of Italian brothers Francesco and Tommaso Buti: a themed restaurant chain fronted by four supermodels — Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer and Christy Turlington — who promoted the brand in exchange for consultancy fees rather than equity. At its peak the chain ran five locations and expanded into the United Kingdom, South Africa, Mexico and Spain, with a London branch under construction from May 1996.

The money ran out faster than the fame. In 1998 tax agents issued warrants over unpaid taxes and business partners sued Tommaso Buti for roughly $15 million. The London flagship, a lavish conversion of the former Rialto cinema at Piccadilly Circus, went into administration on 20 October 1998: creditors were owed £2 million and investors who had sunk £6 million into the venue were unlikely to recover much. Administrator John Alexander said the founders had spent too much on refurbishing the lavish decor and too little on day-to-day running costs.

The chain closed in 1998, and the story ended in court: in December 2000 the U.S. Attorney's Office indicted both Buti brothers on 51 counts including conspiracy, fraud and money laundering, saying they had used investor money to fund personal lifestyles while falsely claiming personal investment in the chain. They were arrested in Milan. The supermodels themselves lost nothing — they had never held equity.