Activists stage fashion show before Met Gala in rebuke to Bezos and Amazon: ‘The people behind the smile’

Labor is Art gathered protesters in New York before gala in which billionaire Amazon founder and his wife are honorary chairs for their $10m donation Fashion’s Faustian pact: the high cost of Jeff Bezos’s Met Gala patronage Anti-Jeff Bezos/Amazon/Met Gala protests got off early on Tuesday in Manhattan with ... what else? A fashion show. Labor is Art, a group bringing together Amazon workers, their unions and supporters, staged a show on Little West 12th Street to emphasize that labor workers have the power to tell their own stories, and it is their labor that makes Amazon – and not the man who owns 8% of it. As the Met Gala enters its billionaire era – tonight’s bash is supported to the tune of $10m by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, according to the New York Post – many said they were concerned that Bezos, the Met Gala and the fashion industry broadly, were bigfooting. The city was filled with purring black SUVs ferrying gala guests around from pre-event to pre-event. Alexia Sol, who walked in the show wearing Cindy Cruz, said she was protesting because “billionaires are not the most important people in the world. The most importa