Amazon labor advocates and designers staged a parallel “Ball Without Billionaires” event in New York to highlight worker rights and ethical production.Amazon labor advocates and designers staged a parallel “Ball Without Billionaires” event in New York to highlight worker rights and ethical production.
Jeff Bezos’ role in Monday night’s Met Gala has caused a stir among activists and prompted labor groups representing Amazon employees to counterprogram the event in solidarity with workers’ rights.
The Amazon founder and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, are the lead sponsors and co-chairs of the annual fundraising event, which is held to support the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
In April, posters began popping up outside the New York City museum decrying the event as the “Bezos Met Gala” that is “brought to you by worker exploitation.” The posters were created by U.K.-based activist group Everyone Hates Elon, referring to the world’s richest man, Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk.
The group has taken responsibility for anti-Bezos messages projected throughout high-profile areas in Manhattan on Sunday night, airing video interviews with Amazon workers onto the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the Bezoses’ penthouse near Madison Square Park. One such message read, “If you can buy the Met Gala, you can pay more taxes.”
The collective also claimed to have hidden over 300 bottles with fake urine throughout the museum in protest of alleged treatment of Amazon workers. The apparent move alludes to allegations from employees years ago that they needed to urinate in bottles instead of taking a bathroom break because of the pressure to meet productivity goals.
Alongside the backlash, labor groups including the Amazon Labor Union and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organized the launch of the “Ball Without Billionaires” fashion show, which was held in New York City’s Gansevoort Plaza on Monday.
The counter-event was aimed at flipping the 2026 Met Gala theme of “Fashion is Art” on its head, featuring workers as models and elevating fashion projects from up-and-coming designers under the promoted theme “Labor is Art.”
On Monday, workers from Amazon and subsidiary Whole Foods, as well as the Bezos-owned Washington Post were among those participating, alongside those at companies including Starbucks and Uber.
Domingo Castillo, an organizing leader of the Massachusetts-based, SEIU-backed App Drivers Union and a fashion designer participating in the event, felt he and fellow ridesharing drivers were all “fighting for the same rights” as those Amazon warehouse workers and contracted delivery drivers.
“What moved me is all the injustices that I see with my fellow workers, especially coming from these Big Tech companies,” Castillo told Sourcing Journal. “That really motivates me to speak up and to start organizing my fellow workers, because with this, I want to show everybody and to prove to everybody, when you unite, there are a lot of things that you can accomplish. This is a good opportunity for us to stand up and speak up. How will they feel if they don’t have one entire day without Amazon operations?”
Castillo, a Dominican-born, Boston-based tailor and organizer, began driving for rideshare platforms to supplement his independent fashion design work. After Castillo said he was unfairly deactivated from working for Lyft after an accident in 2023, he took on a larger leadership role at the union.
“My sole purpose of as an activist and organizer for the App Driver union is to help those workers from Amazon to achieve what we did,” said Castillo. “It is to have a union and to have a safe voice in their jobs.”
Fashion designer Prao Leeswadtrakul, the founder of contemporary ready-to-wear label Salteye Studio, said the Ball Without Billionaires felt like a “natural fit” for the brand when asked to showcase designs for the event.
According to Leeswadtrakul, the “Labor is Art” theme resonated with the Salteye Studio team of six seamstress. The company focuses on using deadstock and responsibly sourced materials to produce garments ethically in small batches and on a made-to-order basis.
“Amazon represents what Salteye is not—it’s fast, massive, cheaply produced and cheap to purchase,” Leeswadtrakul told Sourcing Journal. “All attributes that might sound great at first glance, but when you peel back the layers, dark truths are uncovered, and that’s what the activists and Amazon workers we are dressing in Salteye are bringing to light. Salteye is not for everyone—it’s for people that truly value the work that goes into each expertly tailored piece, and are willing to pay for it.”
The “Ball Without Billionaires” launch and the criticisms of Bezoses’ Met Gala involvement comes as the couple are making more active inroads in sustainable fashion.
Last year, the Bezos Earth Fund teamed with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) to launch a $6.3 million collaboration to fund designer awards, student scholarships and storytelling programs aimed at fostering education in sustainable fashion.
In April, the fund further opened its pocketbook in awarding $34 million in grants to institutions studying and developing sustainable textiles and materials for the fashion industry.
Since its launch, the fund has committed $10 billion to protect nature and address climate change.
“Billionaires [like Bezos] must always remember, there would never be billionaires without essential workers. They would never have the money and empire they have without these workers,” Castillo said. “We’re not asking to live next to your house or to be a billionaire like you, but at least give us the opportunity to get somewhere else and not just exploit us and to use us to make your money.”
