Each year, the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—dubbed just The Met—hosts an invite-only fundraising gala in New York City, currently boasting a $100,000-a-ticket price tag.
The Met Gala has been called "fashion’s biggest night" with icons of fashion and entertainment rubbing elbows with the uber-wealthy in The Met's Fifth Avenue location on Manhattan's Upper East Side. This year's theme was "Fashion is Art."
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his new wife Lauren Sánchez Bezos were the lead sponsors for the 2026 Met Gala, causing considerable protests over the billionaire's less than stellar reputation regarding livable wages, humane working conditions, and fair labor practices for his employees and contractors.
Traditionally, the incumbent mayor of NYC attends the gala.
But Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a progressive democratic socialist, and his wife, animator, illustrator, and ceramist Rama Duwaji, effectively said, "thanks, but no thanks" to this year's invite.
Instead of attending the Met Gala to hobnob with celebrities and billionaires, Mayor Mamdani's office put a spotlight on six local fashion industry workers in a portrait series by Kara McCurdy.
The photos highlighted the labor of Saks Fifth Avenue Master Tailor and union organizer Christopher Anderson; former model, Macy’s employee, and union organizer Earnestine Gay; self-taught designer, tailor, and community organizer Hafeez Raza; former Amazon delivery employees and Delivery Protection Act activists Latrice Johnson and Lamont Hopewell; and tailor turned teacher Sonia Castrejón.
Speaking with Steff Yotka of British fashion, culture, and lifestyle publication i-D, Mayor Mamdani said:
"The fashion industry is made possible by the thousands of workers behind the scenes—seamstresses, tailors, retail workers, delivery drivers—whose immense talent and dedication deserves to be celebrated."
He added:
"From true love found on the picket line, to an entrepreneur running a tailoring school out of her Brooklyn basement, we’re proud to feature the stories of these hardworking New Yorkers who make our city’s fashion industry second to none."
The images captured were featured in posts on the mayor's social media accounts, captioned:
"While the world’s eyes are on fashion’s biggest night, we’re turning ours to the garment, retail, and warehouse workers who keep the industry running."
"...meet the New Yorkers who make it all possible."
A behind the scenes video was captioned:
"On fashion’s big night out, we turned the lens onto the garment, retail, warehouse, and delivery workers who make the fashion industry possible."
Mayor Mamdani told the publication Hell Gate of his decision not to attend the Met Gala:
"My focus is also on affordability and making the most expensive city in the United States affordable, and that’s what I’m looking to spend a lot of my time focused on."
People applauded Mayor Mamdani's integrity.
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Featured master tailor and union organizer Anderson said:
"Union workers, especially garment workers, built this country."
Former Amazon delivery drivers who fell in love on the picket line fighting for the Delivery Protection Act supported by the Teamsters Union, Johnson and Hopewell had a message for Bezos:
"Do you have any kids?… Do you have any family that you care about? Let’s say they had to work in an Amazon truck or deliver Amazon packages. How would you want them to get treated? What type of benefits would you want them to have?"
According to British tabloid Page Six, Bezos and Sanchez-Bezos bought their way onto the dais at the Met Gala with a $10 million "donation."
Designer Cindy Castro's fashions were featured at the counter-Met Gala event, the Ball Without Billionaires held on Gansevoort Plaza in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan to spotlight fashion designs from employees of Bezos-related companies like Amazon and Whole Foods.
Castro told CNN Style:
"If there is that money to sponsor [the Met Gala], there should also be money to pay the workers fairly."
Bezos has not yet directly responded to the Met Gala controversy and criticism.
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