The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a statement released Monday that Wet Seal, a nationwide apparel retailer for young women, illegally discriminated against a former store manager after one of the company’s executives complained about too many black employees at the manager’s store in Pennsylvania.

Citing unusually blatant evidence of racial discrimination, the director of the commission’s Philadelphia office noted in a “determination” released Monday that Wet Seal’s “corporate managers have openly stated they wanted employees who had the ‘Armani look, were white, had blue eyes, thin and blond in order to be profitable.’ ”

The federal agency found that Wet Seal terminated Nicole Cogdell, the African-American former manager of its store in King of Prussia, Pa., in 2009, the day after the retailer’s senior vice president for store operations had inspected that store and several others in the area and sent an e-mail saying, “African Americans dominate — huge issue.”

The commission said it would seek “a just resolution of this matter” through negotiations.

It issued its determination after Ms. Cogdell had filed a complaint with the agency and after she and two other black former Wet Seal managers filed a federal race discrimination lawsuit against the company last July.