Back in May, there was the one-two punch of Anna Wintour’s attempt to rehabilitate Georgina Chapman. Georgina sat down with Vogue for her first interview following her husband’s spectacular downfall last year, and Scarlett Johansson was the only celebrity on the Met Gala red carpet who wore Marchesa. The message from those two moments was pretty obvious: Chapman has not been shunned by fashion people, and Anna Wintour has taken a personal interest in rehabilitating not only Georgina Chapman, but the Marchesa brand. Some people argued that of course Chapman did nothing wrong, that her husband is the rapist and assailant and it’s not her fault. Other people noted that Chapman knew – or had to have known – that Weinstein pressured celebrity women to wear Marchesa.

Many people also pointed out the long-standing rumors that Weinstein was and is heavily invested in Marchesa, and that he probably gave Chapman the seed money to really build her label. The Vogue article glossed over that fact and made it seem like Marchesa’s finances had nothing to do with Weinstein’s money or help or anything. Wellllll… the Daily Beast says otherwise.

A Daily Beast investigation has found a series of connections between Marchesa and a company listed on court documents as “doing business as” Marchesa—one that may be directly linked to Weinstein himself—and sources tell The Daily Beast that Weinstein allegedly provided money to Marchesa as it launched itself into the fashion stratosphere.

Chapman declined to address with The Daily Beast the relationship between Marchesa and a company called SeaMarch Creations Inc.—Marchesa and SeaMarch are anagrams of each other—and whether Weinstein himself was involved in SeaMarch Creations Inc. at one time.

In a business report indexed in a public records database, Weinstein is listed as a “president” and “officer” of SeaMarch Creations Inc. Political donations filed in 2012 by both Weinstein and Chapman are connected to an address, an office on Seventh Avenue in New York, which is also listed as a one-time address of SeaMarch and also of Weinstein’s former accountant. In a listing at the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, the two companies are listed as one, Marchesa/SeaMarch Creations Inc., while both Marchesa and SeaMarch also appear together as defendants in a 2015 court filing, both sharing the same address at Marchesa HQ on West 26th Street in New York City.

In the court filing, SeaMarch Creations Inc. is described as “d/b/a”—doing business as—Marchesa. The companies also appear co-joined in a LinkedIn profile (Marchesa also has its own). Through a spokesperson, Chapman declined to clarify what SeaMarch Creations Inc. was or is, and what it “doing business as” Marchesa precisely means.

“Ms. Chapman, Ms. Craig, nor anyone else at Marchesa has any involvement at all in SeaMarch. SeaMarch has no involvement at all in Marchesa Holdings, LLC,” a Marchesa spokesperson told The Daily Beast in a statement, declining to answer a number of other questions about the two companies. Both Chapman and Weinstein also declined to clarify any links between the two companies, or to answer questions about any past or present involvement by Weinstein—financial or otherwise—with his wife’s business.

[From The Daily Beast]

If this seems unnecessarily complicated, I agree and just know that I only really understood half of it. From what I gather from the Daily Beast’s documentation and investigation, it’s pretty much a sure thing that Weinstein was financially involved at the start of Marchesa’s formation in some sense. Chapman and her partner likely started the label themselves around the same time that Chapman and Weinstein began dating. He either invested heavily in getting Marchesa off the ground or he found friends who would invest in it, although I think it’s more likely that Weinstein was the one investing. What I’m unsure of is whether Marchesa’s financials are still tangled up in SeaMarch whatsoever.

Plus, here’s something to consider: Chapman and Weinstein are in the middle of a divorce and they’re currently splitting up assets and what have you. I think it’s more than likely that Chapman gets Marchesa free and clear in the divorce, without having to “share” any of the label or the label’s profits with Weinstein.

Photos courtesy of WENN.