Anna Wintour has officially given tech bro culture vultures the wings they so desperately coveted as A.L.T. does somersaults in his grave and Grace Coddington serves a covert eyeroll from her luxurious perch. We could write an essay on how Anna has been the true villain of fashion for decades but we will save that for another time. Perhaps for her alleged farewell tour just in time for the upcoming sequel to ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. Coincidence? We think not!
The Met Gala is a charity event and fundraiser for The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It has traditionally been timed to mark the opening of the department’s spring fashion exhibition. Year after year, the event raises eight-figure sums, but in 2025, museum officials reported the biggest gross in the starry, storied event’s 77-year history: some $31 million. Dubbed ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, the event finally centered many of the people who shaped fashion worldwide.
With those tallies in mind, should it come as a surprise to anyone that Wintour doubled down on liberally snatching up Black culture and using Jizz Bezos and his endless trunks of cash to help her optimize her schemes? The next five months are going to show the world just how powerful Black American culture is, and also reveal how many alleged Black American leaders of today can easily be swayed by a check to the detriment of Black people collectively.
A Curated Crossroads of Power
Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour will co-chair the 2026 Met Gala, and already heads are cocked and sides have been taken. Venus being a co-chair and not Serena is already being talked about as it seems as if Serena has been (un)quietly campaigning for a role in fashion the last few years. So naturally the question is: did Serena turn it down OR did Anna Wintour decide that despite all of her face-sculpting, possible face-lightening, and Ozempic-esque drama over the past year and a half, it was not enough to woo Wintour? Beyoncé may have just divided her Beyhive for the first time ever, as some pull out the stingers on its own queen, and Nicole Kidman is the frost queen caught in the middle as one of the co-chairs. And in true form, it seems that Hollywood is getting more Hollyweird as techbros like Jeff Bezos and their ilk seem hellbent on turning the entertainment industry into their personal playground. We are all about to be f*cked into digital dust:
This quartet represents a pinnacle of achievement across music, film, sports, and the very architecture of fashion itself. On its surface, it is a historic elevation, placing Black women who are global icons at the helm of fashion’s most exclusive night. Yet, this moment arrives at a precise and uncomfortable cultural inflection point, where the celebration of Black excellence is increasingly shadowed by its calculated acquisition by a new breed of Silicon Valley patrons.
The Bezos Blueprint: Buying a Seat at the Zeitgeist
The undeniable subtext is the aggressive, capital-fueled entry of tech oligarchs like Jeff Bezos into the cultural sphere. His strategy is not one of patronage but of acquisition — and now, through influence and association, Black icons themselves. The marriage to Lauren Sánchez, whose personal style has been characterized more by conspicuous opulence than curated taste, and her subsequent, relentless elevation into fashion’s inner sanctum is a prime exhibit. But if it isn’t already obvious to everyone, it is now: what Lauren Sánchez Bezos wants, she gets. It is a transaction: vast financial resources exchanged for cultural legitimacy and a sanitized public image, using proximity to Black and established white celebrities as a social coolant. It reeks of a racism that sees Blackness as a high-value asset to be owned and weaponized for reputation laundering. You heard it here 31st: the ramifications, repercussions, and ripple effects of this upcoming Met Gala will be felt across the four corners of the earth for a generation and then some – and not in ways that many will like.
Co-Chairs or Canaries in the Gilded Coal Mine?
This forces a difficult question upon the esteemed 2026 co-chairs: are they unwitting canaries in a gilded coal mine, or active participants in a new paradigm? Is Beyoncé, usually a master of owning her narrative, lending her unimpeachable cultural capital to a system being quietly rewired by tech money? Is she under new management? Does she have a new team behind her that advised her to say yes to this gig? Is Anna Wintour, who famously anointed Kim Kardashian — a figure emblematic of fame as a final product — now performing a similar alchemy for a tech mogul’s spouse, trading the mantle of gatekeeper for that of a highly paid concierge to the nouveau riche? The move feels like a stark acceleration of a trend Wintour pioneered: elevating figures whose primary achievement is monumental visibility, thus devaluing the craft and history the Met Gala purportedly celebrates.
The Smokescreen of Inclusion and the Future of Culture
The danger lies in the smokescreen. The powerful image of Beyoncé and Venus Williams at the pinnacle can be used to mask a quieter, more insidious shift: the conversion of hard-won cultural influence into a luxury good, bundled and sold by tech billionaires seeking absolution and access. The 2026 Gala may be spectacular, a genuine celebration of its chairs’ legacies. But it will also be the starkest tableau yet of a crossroads. One path leads to a future where culture remains a messy, democratic, and artist-driven force. The other leads to a future where it is merely another polished vertical in a portfolio, curated not for its soul, but for its utility in shielding power from scrutiny. The question the red carpet will pose is not “Who are you wearing?” but “Whose interests are you wearing?”
