Dame Anna Wintour may have landed the biggest ever Met Gala sponsorship deal but it has triggered a backlash against Jeff Bezos amid claims he is buying his way into fashion’s most hallowed halls.
Wintour, who remains global editorial director of Vogue after handing over the reins to Chloe Malle, is said to have received at least $10 million from the Amazon founder for New York’s big night after courting his cash for years.
Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, will be co-chairs of the dinner to raise funds for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art but several big names will be absent, with some objecting to the “transactional” nature of getting a seat at fashion’s top tables.
Companies including OpenAI, Meta and Snapchat have bought up seats this year, with the Meta billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla, rumoured to be attending for the first time, putting a squeeze on fashion houses and designers. Individual tickets cost $100,000, up from $75,000 last year.
Meryl Streep, the actress who appears on the cover of the May issue of American Vogue and plays Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada 2 — the character inspired by Wintour — is said to have turned down a co-hosting role at the Met Gala because of Bezos and Sánchez’s involvement.
The event may have some familiar faces missing. Elle reported that the A-list actress and singer Zendaya will miss the New York City ceremony. Lauren Santo Domingo, the entrepreneur behind the fashion outlet Moda Operandi, will not attend, according to the New York Post, with one source saying: “That’s like Tom Brady skipping the Super Bowl.”
A number of other top designers are also said to be missing this year, including Nicolas Ghesquière of Louis Vuitton and Jonathan Anderson of the British fashion label JW Anderson.
A spokesperson for Streep said: “Meryl has been invited to the Met Gala for many years but has never attended. While she appreciates Vogue, Anna and her incredible imagination and stamina, it has never quite been her scene.”
The Met Gala will not be short on celebrities, however, with Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams joining Wintour on the host committee. Among the guests expected are Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the model Heidi Klum and the actress Laura Harrier.
Bezos’s alignment with the Trump administration is said to be aggravating the liberal fashion world. Amazon has funded a documentary about the first lady, Melania Trump, and is now reported to be considering a reboot of The Apprentice starring Donald Trump Jr in the role that made his father famous.
“For me, it’s not just about the gala, it reflects a broader shift in the world we’re living in,” said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former Vogue special events planner who ran the ball for over a decade.
“There was a time when access to spaces like the Met Gala, or even the pages of Vogue, wasn’t something you could simply obtain, it was something you grew into through your influence, your work and your impact. It carried a sense of prestige that felt earned, not transactional.”
Protesters have been putting up posters around the venue reading: “The Bezos Met Gala. Brought to you by worker exploitation”, and they are planning to turn out to harangue those attending.
The poster features a bottle of urine on a red carpet, referring to reports that Amazon delivery drivers are under so much time pressure they do not have time to find lavatories and so relieve themselves in their delivery vans.
“It’s a bad look. It’s a no-brainer — you’re really talking about a disconnect from humanity,” said Chris Smalls, former president of the Amazon Labour Union. “There are people just a few blocks away who are struggling so survive, including Bezos’s own workers. Tens of thousands of them are living off government food stamps, some without housing.”
