Activists Criticize Jeff Bezos and Amazon Ahead of Met Gala
In the days leading up to the Met Gala, activists gathered in New York City to protest the involvement of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who are honorary chairs of this year’s event following their $10 million donation. The group Labor is Art, which includes Amazon workers, union members, and supporters, organized a fashion show on Little West 12th Street to highlight the role of laborers behind Amazon’s success and to challenge the billionaire’s prominent position at the gala.
Labor is Art’s Fashion Show Protest
Labor is Art staged a fashion show as a form of protest to emphasize that it is the labor of Amazon workers—not the billionaire owner who holds about 8% of the company—that truly drives Amazon’s operations. The event aimed to give workers a platform to tell their own stories and to draw attention to the conditions they face.
Participants in the show wore designs by independent creators and expressed their opposition to the Met Gala’s celebration of wealth over people. Alexia Sol, a trans activist who walked in the show wearing a design by Cindy Cruz, stated that billionaires are not the most important people in the world, but rather the workers who generate their wealth.
Samari Jomar Mercado, a Puerto Rican model and Amazon warehouse employee, described her work as physically demanding and painful. She emphasized the importance of visibility for warehouse workers, calling them “the people behind the smile” and expressing a desire for cultural events like the Met Gala to focus less on billionaires and more on the people who contribute to the industry.
Concerns Over Billionaire Influence on Fashion and Culture
The Met Gala, now heavily supported by billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, has raised concerns among activists and fashion insiders about the growing influence of wealth on cultural events. The city saw increased security and transportation logistics, including numerous black SUVs ferrying gala guests between events.
Protesters and participants in the Labor is Art event criticized the gala for prioritizing money over human stories. They argued that the fashion industry and cultural institutions are increasingly dominated by wealthy individuals who seek to control narratives and cultural expression.
Giselle Lebedenko and designer Chris Mejia, who attended the protest event, expressed frustration with the fashion industry’s focus on profit rather than creativity and self-expression. They noted that the current fashion system tends to produce excessive goods aimed at maximizing profits, often at the expense of individuality and the values of younger generations.
Mejia remarked that billionaires view fashion as a cash grab, which ultimately harms the hard work and artistry involved in the industry. Both he and Lebedenko emphasized that fashion should celebrate the people who do the hard work rather than the wealthy patrons who dominate the cultural space.
Additional Protests and Public Statements
Other groups also staged protests related to Bezos and the Met Gala. For example, the UK campaign group Everyone Hates Elon reportedly left small bottles of urine bearing Bezos’s image around the Metropolitan Museum of Art ahead of the gala. They criticized the museum for honoring Bezos as a gala host.
On Sunday night, slogans were projected onto Bezos’s apartment building in Madison Square, further signaling public discontent with his role in the event.
Shantiera Dubarry, a New York City government security guard and participant in the fashion show, highlighted the disparity between the wealth of Bezos and others and the labor of workers who helped build that wealth. She said the focus should be on the workers’ contributions rather than the billionaires’ status.
Dubarry also emphasized that her form of protest was peaceful and expressive rather than confrontational, hoping that her message of peace and love would resonate even if not openly acknowledged by gala attendees.