{"id":645367,"date":"2026-05-03T16:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T16:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/645367\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T16:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T16:11:08","slug":"fashions-faustian-pact-the-high-cost-of-jeff-bezoss-met-gala-patronage-met-gala-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/645367\/","title":{"rendered":"Fashion\u2019s Faustian pact: the high cost of Jeff Bezos\u2019s Met Gala patronage | Met Gala 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Met Gala in New York<\/a> is the grandest and ritziest event in the fashion calendar, and an indicator of the growing ties between designers, celebrity and power. But with tech billionaires now joining the cohort, this year\u2019s party may be its most controversial yet.<\/p>\n

All eyes are on the guest list \u2013 and their outfits \u2013 to launch the fashion exhibition Costume Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute. Beyonc\u00e9, Venus Williams and Nicole Kidman are chairing the event with Vogue\u2019s Anna Wintour<\/a>, and tickets cost about $100,000 (\u00a373,500). But in a plot twist worthy of the new Devil Wears Prada film, Jeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos, the Met Gala\u2019s new honorary chairs, will be joining the 450 guests on the museum steps on Monday.<\/p>\n

A man puts up a \u2018Boycott the Bezos Met Gala\u2019 poster at a bus stop in Manhattan on 27 April. Photograph: Timothy A Clary\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n

The billionaires\u2019 involvement as the main source of funding for the exhibition and the party has set tongues wagging, reviving rumours that the Amazon founder will buy Cond\u00e9 Nast<\/a>, the parent company of Vogue, which oversees the gala. Last year there was speculation that Bezos would snap up the company as a wedding gift \u2013 it is thought the couple missed the 2025 gala only because of their starry wedding in Venice, although S\u00e1nchez Bezos appeared on Vogue\u2019s digital cover in a Dolce & Gabbana wedding gown.<\/p>\n

Skipping the event is Zohran Mamdani, breaking a decades-long tradition of New York mayors attending the gala. Parts of New York have been papered with posters criticising the Bezos\u2019s involvement in the fundraiser, mounted by Everyone Hates Elon, a British activist group, which raised \u00a315,000 in a week and is expected to be present on the night. \u201cI love celebrity culture and fashion as much as anyone, but [Bezos\u2019s involvement] makes Vogue<\/a> seem irrelevant,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cDon\u2019t tell me Bezos has been involved because of his fashion sense?\u201d<\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, will not go to the gala, breaking a decades-long tradition of New York mayors attending the event. Photograph: Derek French\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Even before the politics, the gala dress code had become a hot topic. Titled \u201cfashion is art\u201d, it takes its cue from the exhibition\u2019s theme, which argues that fashion and art are intertwined, \u201cwith bodies wearing clothes the common thread\u201d, according to Andrew Bolton, the curator of the Met\u2019s Costume Institute.<\/p>\n

Split into 13 \u201cthematic\u201d body types, from pregnant and ageing to disabled and variations on nudity, the exhibition pairs about 200 sculptures and artworks alongside 200 garments and accessories. \u201cThe focus is on bodies marginalised in fashion, and ones that haven\u2019t been valorised in either fashion or western culture,\u201d said Bolton.<\/p>\n

Highlights include a contorted corset by Michaela Stark paired with Niki de Saint Phalle\u2019s Nana and Serpent sculpture, and a Sarah Lucas work next to wearable art made out of \u201cNora Batty-like stockings\u201d by the British designer Harry Pontefract.<\/p>\n

The theme of the gala is Costume Art with the focus on body types that are marginalised in fashion. Photograph: Charles Sykes\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n

A late Roman Venus Pudica sculpture is paired with a dress that uses strategically placed human hair by the British-Turkish designer Dilara Findikoglu. A Burberry trench belonging to the disability activist Sin\u00e9ad Burke and Batsheva Hay\u2019s Hag jumper also feature, as do Rei Kawakubo gowns and Vivienne Westwood\u2019s Martyr to Love jacket, which resembles a man\u2019s upper body.<\/p>\n

As ever, the link between the gala\u2019s dress code and what materialises on the museum steps is tangential. \u201cI\u2019m sure there will be some nakedness,\u201d said Bolton. \u201cI also think we\u2019ll get a lot of goddess gowns. But I do worry people might take the theme literally and come as a painting. Or at least Andy Warhol\u2019s Campbell\u2019s soup can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anna Wintour at the 2024 Met Gala. Beyonc\u00e9, Venus Williams and Nicole Kidman are chairing the event with Wintour and tickets cost about $100,000. Photograph: Dimitrios Kambouris\/Getty for the Met Museum\/Vogue<\/p>\n

Still, he thinks the theme has never been more essential. \u201cA lot of the developments fashion has made over the last few years have really eroded,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t feel as if we\u2019re seeing as much diversity on the runway as you did [then].\u201d<\/p>\n

While the theme will no doubt elicit some more literal translations, including Yves Saint Laurent\u2019s Mondrian-inspired dresses, Cally Blackman, an associate lecturer of fashion history and theory at Central St Martins, hopes it will serve as a riposte to criticism about the value of fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the most powerful form of non-verbal communication that exists, yet we\u2019re always fighting the battle [to prove its worth],\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s only in the last 10 years that museums like the Met or the V&A have realised it gets more people over their thresholds.\u201d<\/p>\n

People walk outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art before Monday\u2019s gala. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Bolton, who is preparing to reveal the Costume Institute\u2019s new permanent home, the Cond\u00e9 M Nast Galleries, agrees. \u201cFor an art museum to position fashion in the centre of the building is symbolic,\u201d he said. \u201cI think people are realising not just the aesthetic value of fashion, but the social, cultural and personal ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gala is one of the most-watched red carpet events of the year, typically attracting 1bn global video views on Vogue\u2019s site alone, and is fast outgrowing its philanthropic purpose, which is to raise funds for the New York museum. Blackman said: \u201cThe problem with the gala is that it\u2019s \u2026 self-defeating. It\u2019s not about fashion, it\u2019s about publicity. I think a lot of the cachet has gone because it\u2019s funded by Jeff Bezos<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Met Gala in New York is the grandest and ritziest event in the fashion calendar, and an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-645367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}