US woman finds dead rat sewn in new dress, sues retailer

An American woman has sued a top fashion retailer, alleging that she found a dead rat sewn into the hem of her new dress she bought. Cailey Fiesel, 24, of Manhattan, has claimed that the outfit she bought from a fashion retailer, Zara, had a dead rodent sewn into the seam.

Fiesel only made the disgusting discovery when the dress started stinking and she felt the animal’s paw poking her in the leg, according to a new lawsuit. “I saw the little leg that was coming out of the seam that I had touched, which was really horrifying. I froze – I was paralysed with fear,” Fiesel told the New York Post.

“I was in complete shock. My eyes saw that it was a mouse but my brain told myself it can’t be,” she said. The Colgate University graduate had bought the black scoop-neck dress for USD 40 from a Zara location in Greenwich, Connecticut, in July.

At first, everything seemed fine. But when she finally wore the garment to work a few weeks later, she noticed a “disturbingly pungent odour” coming from it. “I felt something brushing up against my leg and thought it was a string from the seam of the dress,” Fiesel said.

“When I went to pull at it, it didn’t feel like a string. I then felt the hem of the dress and it felt like there was some sort of sensor. I turned up the seam of the dress and saw it was not a sensor and that it was a mouse,” Fiesel said.