Anna Wintour was a grasp of tact as she talked about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s controversial 2021 Met Gala look in a brand new interview.
Requested concerning the New York Democrat’s white robe, which was emblazoned with the phrase “Tax the Rich” in pink on the again, the previous editor-in-chief of Vogue advised The New Yorker’s David Remnick she didn’t study concerning the message on the lawmaker’s outfit till after the VIP occasion.
“She was actually sitting at my table,” Wintour recalled. “And I stand in the receiving line, and I don’t see the people arriving. I don’t have a secret livestream being zoomed into my earphone. I’m just standing there shaking everybody’s hands, saying, ‘Thank you for coming, blah, blah, blah.’ I said, ‘Thank you for coming,’ and she went by.”
“Then I went up to her before we all sat down at the table. I said, ‘I just love your dress,’” she added, revealing that she had “only seen her from the front” at that time.
Karwai Tang through Getty Pictures
“It wasn’t until the next day that I understood what had happened,” Wintour mentioned of Ocasio-Cortez’s look, which was designed by Aurora James of Brother Vellies. “So, fortunately, I had a wonderful evening.”
Selecting her subsequent phrases shrewdly, Wintour went on to say, “I think everybody uses fashion in different ways, and, obviously, that was something that was important to her.”
Jamie McCarthy/MG21 through Getty Pictures
Whereas the lawmaker actually supposed to make an announcement along with her costume, some discovered the stunt ironic, given how a seat on the elite, invite-only gala price an estimated $35,000 in 2021. (In 2025, that value had reportedly leaped to $75,000.)
Ocasio-Cortez dismissed the backlash on the time, saying she was used to being “heavily and relentlessly policed from all corners politically.”
“Ultimately the haters hated and the people who are thoughtful were thoughtful,” she wrote on Instagram. “But we all had a conversation about Taxing the Rich in front of the very people who lobby against it, and punctured the fourth wall of excess and spectacle.”
The costume prompted one other minor scandal earlier this summer time when the bipartisan Home Ethics Committee concluded that Ocasio-Cortez didn’t pay a good market price for the costume and her equipment, in violation of Home ethics guidelines.
The committee determined it might be “appropriate” for the distinguished progressive to pay designer James $2,733.28 on high of her authentic $990.76 rental price, however decided the lawmaker’s violation of the ethics code had not been “knowing and willful.”
