Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos is officially becoming a co-queen of the Met Gala.<\/p>\n
On Monday morning, the Metropolitan Museum of Art issued a news release announcing the dress code for its Costume Institute fund-raiser on the first Monday in May. A flashbulb fantasy of celebrity, fashion and fabulousness, it is generally described as \u201cthe party of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
And though the actual prompt for what guests should wear \u2014 \u201cfashion is art\u201d is the official directive<\/a> \u2014 might be newsy enough on its own, even more striking was the detail buried on the second page of the announcement: \u201cJeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos will serve as honorary chairs for the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Bezos and Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos had previously been named as the lead sponsors of both the event and the exhibition it celebrates, but this was the first time they had been anointed as honorary chairs of the party, a position that often comes with a place in the receiving line and a position at the top of the Met steps.<\/p>\n Yet the announcement was delivered less like a big Bezos reveal than an easy-to-overlook addendum. The news was listed at the very end of lengthy paragraph enumerating the other co-chairs of the party (Beyonc\u00e9, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour) as well as the 24 members of the party\u2019s host committee. Read too fast, and you could almost miss it.<\/p>\n Was that the point? The museum declined to comment as to why it waited to release this particular piece of news. Met Gala-related information is generally revealed at different times \u2014 the better to stoke anticipation \u2014 and this is the third 2026-gala-related announcement the museum has made. But this is the rare instance in which the lead sponsors will also be the honorary chairs. The news was not acknowledged immediately, perhaps because even the Bezoses\u2019 initial involvement provoked something of an outcry \u2014 or perhaps because the deal was not settled till now.<\/p>\n Indeed, when the news that they were sponsors of the event broke on the Met\u2019s Instagram account<\/a> last year, assorted commentators took issue with the choice.<\/p>\n Increasingly, the relationship between the couple and Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue, global chief content officer of Cond\u00e9 Nast and mastermind of the Met Gala, is being treated as a sign of the times, for good or ill. It started when Ms. Wintour put Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos at her wedding on the digital cover of Vogue<\/a> in June, after publishing an equally laudatory profile<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos was one of the few brides ever to make the Vogue cover (others included Melania Trump in 2005 and Kim Kardashian<\/a> in 2014), and for many viewers, it seemed as if Ms. Wintour was selling the magazine, or at least its stylish soul, to Mr. Bezos \u2014 with an eye, perhaps, to selling Cond\u00e9 Nast. It seemed to some that power, money and self-interest were what mattered when it came to who merited the attention of Vogue.<\/p>\n Even politics can be put aside. Ms. Wintour is an avowed anti-Trumpist \u2014 she has said<\/a> the president is the one person she will never invite to the Met \u2014 while Mr. Bezos and Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos famously donated to Mr. Trump\u2019s inauguration fund and attended the swearing-in last January, Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos in a white suit with a visible lace bustier<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Bezos has long been rumored as a potential purchaser-savior of Vogue\u2019s parent company, in part because he has long been trying to woo high fashion to Amazon<\/a>, and Vogue is the classic conduit to high fashion. Though that has not come to pass, being associated with the Met Gala may be the next best thing. Amazon has sponsored the event in the past, and the couple made their debut at the gala in 2024, but the current sponsorship is private, not corporate, and it frames the Bezoses as heirs to the Astors, Whitneys and Vanderbilts.<\/p>\n Ms. Wintour herself described Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos to CNN<\/a> as a \u201cgreat lover of costume and obviously of fashion\u201d and said, \u201cWe\u2019re very grateful for her incredible generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n When the couple was photographed sitting with Ms. Wintour at the Dior and Schiaparelli couture shows in January, with Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos trading her signature corseted minidresses for two very proper grande dame skirt suits, the relationship seemed to reach a new stage. Later, Ms. S\u00e1nchez Bezos was spotted shopping<\/a> with the \u201cimage architect\u201d Law Roach in various couture ateliers, and the Met moment seemed a likely fait accompli.<\/p>\n Now all of those suspicions have been confirmed. Come May 4, the Bezoses will take their place at the pinnacle of the party. And the resulting image may be proof positive for many that it has become the most visceral expression of a new gilded age.<\/p>\n