Met Gala hits record $42M, Anna Wintour praises Lauren Sánchez Bezos’ ‘good ideas’

NEW YORK – As Venus Williams began to speak at the annual press preview for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's spring exhibit, the tennis icon admitted she had never addressed such a large crowd at a press conference before. While it's noteworthy for Williams, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and seven-time Grand Slam champion, it's also a testament to how much interest the museum has generated in recent years.

The press preview of the Met's exhibit "Costume Art" leads into the annual Met Gala, a fundraiser for the museum that this year has raised a record $42 million. Williams is a celebrity gala co-chair this year alongside Beyoncé and Nicole Kidman.

"Years ago this was a very small event and honestly, we sometimes had to chase people to attend," Anna Wintour, the gala's lead chairperson and Vogue's global editorial director, said. "Fashion, we were a bit of a curiosity. Now fashion is everywhere and belongs to everyone."

Wintour struck a reflective and optimistic tone during her remarks, which she delivered without her trademark black sunglasses. This is the fashion icon's first gala since stepping down as Vogue's editor-in-chief. In her nine-minute speech, she harkened back to her first Met Gala in 1982, as a fashion editor for New York magazine. Wintour said she could barely afford a dress and could only buy a ticket because her editor paid. She recalled paying $900 for her dress, which at the time was "several times my rent."

"I was a nobody that night, but it meant the world to me," Wintour said. "A foreigner who had arrived in New York not so long before, to be part of something so important to the city and to the daunting world of fashion where I was making my way."

Anna Wintour praises Lauren Sánchez Bezos ahead of Met Gala

As Wintour talked about Monday night's festivities, she credited four women with making the night possible: the three co-chairs (Beyoncé, Kidman, Williams) and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, the wife of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The couple are honorary co-chairs for the event and their gift to the museum is supporting this year's spring exhibit.

"Lauren is willing to shake up society with risk-taking and an upbeat spirit that is as boundless as her energy," Wintour said of Sánchez Bezos. "What struck me most about all these women is not just their bravery, but how fast they all keep moving."

Wintour noted that Sánchez Bezos didn't just lend her name to the event, but rather "came to every important meeting full of enthusiasm and good ideas." The Met Gala chair also joked that Sánchez Bezos was the only guest in attendance to "who can wear a bias-cut dress while banking a helicopter."

Anna Wintour, designers talk about the impact of 'Costume Art'

The Met's latest exhibit, "Costume Art," will be open May 10 through Jan. 10, 2027. It lives in the museum's new 12,000-square-foot galleries, which are named for the late Condé M. Nast in recognition of a "significant" gift to the museum made by his namesake company.

"It's about everybody, and it's about every body," Wintour explained. "Nude bodies and classical bodies, corpulent bodies, and disabled bodies and the way both fashion and art can shape our imaginations."

The bodies that Wintour outlined are just a few that are featured in "Costume Art." In one section of the exhibit that highlights fashions on disabled bodies, a mannequin modeled after Sonia Vera was used. Vera, a model and swimsuit designer who was on "Deal or No Deal," is paralyzed from a rare neurological disorder. The designer told USA TODAY that she would have "never believed" that she would be a part of a Met exhibit following her paralysis, which occurred in 2017.

"As a fashion designer, it's really beautiful to now be part of the costume institute, my mannequin, and bringing awareness to disability and fashion," Vera, 46, said. "Everybody has the right to look and feel their best and accepted. That's what really it's all about, is accepting who we are and how we show ourselves in the world."