The Money Behind the Met Gala ft. Amy Odell

This week Haley is joined by Amy Odell (author of Anna Wintour and Gwyneth Paltrow's biographies) to talk all things Met Gala and give you a peek behind the financial curtain of the first Monday in May. Go to ancientandbrave.com/planet and use code TEA for $10 off any purchase. Listen to Amy's podcast, Back Row, here. Buy Amy's books here. Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones is a Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us at @sonypodcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The other day I was going through my desk and I found a journal right from when I graduated and it had pen and paper, how much I spent each day. At this time, I think I was making around forty thousand dollars and access cash flow was pretty tight. So I had to watch every penny. I think about how far we've come with technology and advancements to help us with this stuff. We don't need a journal with pen and paper anymore. The answers are out there and Monarch is one of those answers. Monarch is literally, it's like having a financial advisor in your pocket. So you can use AI to help see what you're spending. Monarch will help you have full visibility in your accounts. It will help you see your trends. It will help you set goals, map out big purchases.

• 0:45Speaker 00

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• 1:29Haley Sacks?

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• 2:12Haley Sacks?

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• 2:28Speaker 02

  I think that's what makes it fascinating. People are like, what is it that that makes Anna Wintour decide to pick you? That you get to go and walk up those steps in a dress custom made for you by one of the world's greatest designers? You know, what is it about you?

• 2:44Haley Sacks?

  What's up, rich people? It's me, Haley, AKA Mrs. Dow Jones, and this is Financial Tea.

• 2:52Haley Sacks?

  Today is a very exciting episode of Financial Tea. I have been wanting to talk to this guest for a long time. I was trying to figure out like what the right moment was. And I thought the first week of May would sort of be the perfect opportunity because we can talk about the Met Gala. And my guest is Amy Odell, author of Gwyneth Paltrow and Anna Wintour's Biographies. She has an amazing newsletter. She hosts the Back Row Podcast and she is the bestselling author of both Gwyneth Paltrow and Anna Wintour's Biographies. You guys, if you are going on vacation or you just like need a new book in general, like these are two of my favorite biographies of all time. They are so juicy. You're truly an enemy of both of those ladies states because you found all of the tea out.

• 3:37Haley Sacks?

  So girl, after my own heart, you really brought a lot to the surface. I would call you a tea leaf reader of celebrity power and influence. And I'm excited for you to be here so that we can talk about the Met Gala and all the finances that go into it.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  What an intro. It feels electric. Intro was electric. Thank you.

• 3:52Haley Sacks?

  But first, let's get into the MDJ market report. Okay, today's market report is a special edition focused on the business of influencing. Please don't turn this off, even if you're not an influencer. You are affected, I promise. Like, as Oprah once said, were you influenced or were you an influencer? JK, she said, were you silent or were you silenced? But like, same thing. Let's start with Nora Smith, though. She just announced her cookbook, Homemade, which is dropping October 13th. It has eight Recipes. It's got a custom redart cover. She's wearing Ralph Lauren. She's wearing Tom Brown. And look, I just want to be real. This woman has seventeen point two million followers.

• 4:32Haley Sacks?

  So like, if you think this cookbook and the lifestyle that she's selling is about staying home and baking bread and taking care of your husband, it is not. It's a business, a very successful one. And here's the thing that I want to highlight. Tradwife content sells this idea of opting out, but it only exists because the person creating it is hyper online and fully opted in. So like what you're looking at is an eight-figure business model, basically disguised as domesticity. And importantly, the product is not the lifestyle. Like, the product is emotional relief. Like, right now, people are overwhelmed. Like, burnout is high. We all just want chickens and eggs and like, a life outside in a barn. Like, the cost of living is so high. The future feels unstable.

• 5:17Haley Sacks?

  So like, what sells? Control, simplicity, this fantasy of a slower life. And, you know, I talk a lot about the monetization of nostalgia in hard times. And this is exactly like that, because like, behind the scenes, this lifestyle requires filming and editing and negotiating and building and distribution. And like, that is called a full-time job, honey. A high-scale entrepreneurial job, okay? Nora is not opting out of work. She is rebranding it and then selling you the illusion that she did. So in a lot of ways, I just think this is like the Girlboss era in a corset. It's the same hustle, but it's got a new aesthetic and better performing content. The 2010s Girlboss said, "I can do it all at the office."

• 6:00Haley Sacks?

  And the 2026 Tradwife says, "I choose to do it all at home." But the difference is that the Tradwife era also carries a genuinely risky financial message underneath it. Because in today's economy, if you actually opt out without income, without ownership, without leverage, when you become reliant on a man, because you're just like at home taking care of things, you make yourself incredibly vulnerable. So like, the aesthetic is beautiful.

• 6:30Haley Sacks?

  But the financial reality it implies that being financially dependent is a positive thing is not. So I just want to be clear, the trad wife isn't opting out of capitalism. She is winning at it. But the question is whether her audience knows that they're the product. And that's sort of the theme of this whole market report. Oh, and speaking of the audience not knowing they're the product, I want to talk about sponsored influencer weddings because we are entering wedding season and an influencer just had her wedding sponsored by drumroll please Capital One. Okay, and this has become normal. We're not going to have white wedding dresses anymore. We're going to look like NASCAR drivers walking down the aisle with like different patches from brands. Like brides are designing their

• 7:12Haley Sacks?

  days with a will it go viral mindset. I saw acquired styles at Fuquet's getting her, you know, group of bridesmaids spray tans. Lord knows where they're off to by the time that I release this, you know, it's all a content moment. Sure, the day is still emotional. You might really love the person you're married, but it's also a shoot. And here's the part that nobody is talking about. These influencers aren't paying for any of it. That Fuquet's suite, she didn't pay for that. The photo booth gifted, the florals, a partnership, the dresses, the late night fireworks, it is all sponsored. The whole thing is essentially a free wedding in exchange for content, which again, respect the hustle. But like when that wedding goes viral, it becomes the new benchmark. So like the average bride who

• 7:57Haley Sacks?

  does not have a Capital One deal is now trying to recreate a $500,000 event on a $30,000 budget. And look, the American wedding industry is already a $70 billion machine built on the idea that your wedding should be like the most spectacular thing that you've ever done, the best day of your life. And I feel like all of these influencer weddings have just poured jet fuel on that. And it's worrisome because couples are going into serious debt trying to match this aesthetic that was literally free for the person who set it. I don't know. I just think this whole thing is like a trend setting machine where the person at the top pays nothing and everyone downstream pays everything. It's basically MLM.

• 8:40Haley Sacks?

  It's an MLM, you guys. And I don't think that's love. That is a funnel. And then our last story is about sandwiches. If you didn't know this about me, I'm the biggest Jersey Mike's girl. We eat it like once a week at my office. It is so good. I'm obsessed. And they are IPO-ing and my phone was blowing up because everyone was like, Haley, you're obviously going to buy the Jersey Mike's IPO. And I was like, actually, girl, I ran the numbers and I would never buy the Jersey Mike's IPO. And so I want to explain what an IPO even freaking is and why they're not right for everyone. So basically, an IPO is an initial public offering. So it's when a private company goes public and everyone can then invest in it. And then like the early investors get to cash out.

• 9:23Haley Sacks?

  So let's talk about with the Jersey Mike's IPO specifically, like who is going to benefit from them going public on the New York Stock Exchange? In this case, it's going to be Blackstone. Yes, Blackstone, the private equity group that everyone loves to hate. They and my ex works at, but they bought Jersey Mike's in 2024 for $8 billion. And two years later, it had a $12 billion valuation. So like this isn't really about Jersey Mike's even needing capital to scale. It's really about Blackstone getting out. Like they want to flip it. The sandwich is the vehicle, the exit is the point. So you always need to ask when you see these things, like who is selling and why now? And it's like, yeah, Blackstone wants to make some money. Okay, the next thing that you want to do when you see an IPO is read the numbers, not the narratives.

• 10:07Haley Sacks?

  Like obviously, like I said, I love Jersey Mike's. Oh yeah, you would think I want to invest in them because I love their juicy, juicy sandwiches. Absolutely not. I looked at the numbers. Their revenue is up 10.6%, which sounds great. But their net income is down 23%. So that gap is the most important line in the filing and most people are going to skip right past it. Healthy companies grow both. And when they diverge, you need to find out why before you hand over your money. So the next thing you need to do is understand if you're even getting a good deal. Like understand what you're paying for. So Jersey Mike's, at $12 billion, at $309 million in revenue, that means that you're paying 39 times revenue. And by guys, that is not fast food math.

• 10:50Haley Sacks?

  It's like tech AI company math for a sandwich. So it's overpriced and I get it. You're buying what someone is promising it will become. That's like the whole point of investing, but I'm just saying like those that's crazy to me like that. I'm paying like tech prices for sandwich. The last thing I will say with an IPO is you always want to watch the signals because they always shift around like who's leading the company before they go public. Like with Jersey Mike's, they just hired the guy who took Wingstop public in 2015 and delivered a 700% return over a decade, which to me is like a message to Wall Street. You know, it's not even an operations decision. They're just like, yeah, we mean business. And you know what? I'm rooting for them. I love Jersey Mike's, but I will not be buying this stock, this IPO, absolutely not. At 39 times revenue with falling net income. Like, I don't care who the new CEO is.

• 11:35Haley Sacks?

  You have to really believe hard in that story to get on board. And the job of every IPO is to make you do that before you even see the receipts. But we are here at the Financial Tea. We are sippers. We always look at the receipts and we know the difference between a great sandwich and a great investment. And that's why we are so rich and smart. So yeah, don't fall for these IPOs, baby. Just buy local index funds. They honestly, they all tank. Okay, now let's get into our interview.

• 12:05Haley Sacks?

  You started as a journalist, right? And then you forayed into writing these books that have like really cemented your place in the culture as, you know, this expert on, of course, Gwyneth Paltrow, but also Anna Wintour, who's someone who just has such a legend about her. And what I loved about your book was learning that Anna had always been Anna. Like even when, you know, like she was like in high school, like changing the hems on her skirts, speaking back to the teachers. At her first job, she brought in new furniture for the office. Like she has always been that girl with like her own perspective, who, you know, had her own vision of how things were supposed to be.

• 12:50Haley Sacks?

  Like, can you talk a bit more about that?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Anna is the daughter of Charles Winter, who was a very well-respected and well-known newspaper editor in London. And she's very much like her father. He was called Chili Charlie. One of the people who worked for him told me that he would, like Anna is not big on small talk. When you're meeting someone for the first time or hanging out with someone who you don't know, I think many people have the natural inclination to fill the space. To just, you know, make conversation, but Anna doesn't do that. And actually, her father, someone who worked with him, told me he would write down things to talk about at lunch, like if he took a staff member to lunch. And then that would help him drive the conversation. But he was known as being cold, foreboding, intimidating, rather like her.

• 13:35Haley Sacks?

  So, but talk about her route to the Met Gala, because when, like, she started with the Met Gala, it was not what it is now. It was like a small, little charity event, like, okay, you know, and it was in support of, you can tell us about it, but in support of the Costume Institute at the Museum of, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which is completely self-funded. So it has to, all the money has to be raised.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Anna's first event was in 1995, and Oscar de la Renta called her and asked her if she would help plan it. And it was historically known as the party of the year.

• 14:14Haley Sacks?

  Woo, oh, so even then.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  I would say, yeah, nobody calls it the party of the year anymore, because it's so much more than that. The Super Bowl of entertainment events, maybe, not just fashion. She took it on in 1995. The idea was that they wanted someone from the fashion world to plan it, but they didn't want a designer, because they thought that would be a conflict of interest. She ends up taking it on, and I think the initial plan was for her and Liz Tolbertis, who was her rival editor at Harper's Bazaar, to kind of alternate. But then Liz Tolbertis died in the late 90s of cancer, and Anna took it on, and she's been doing it basically ever since. So from 1999 through today, they, I think they skipped 2001 because of 9/11, but she's been planning it every single year.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  And the Costume Institute is unique within the Metropolitan Museum of Art, because it has to raise all its own money. It does not benefit from the Met's endowment. And historically, it has sort of been the...

• 15:09Speaker 02

  I don't know how to say this.

• 15:10Haley Sacks?

  Stepchild.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, the like bastard step.

• 15:13Haley Sacks?

  Yeah. Like the one that we're gonna cut if it doesn't work like.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, it just wasn't like is fashion art? I think that's a question that like, maybe it gets debated less to this day. You know, we see designers or brands like Scaparelli getting big exhibitions in the V and A. I think these fashion exhibits have really proliferated around the globe and become a lot more popular in large part owing to the success of the Costume Institute at the Met, which is able to be so big and fabulous and splashy because of all the money that Anna Wintour has helped raise for it. So yes, it has to raise all its own funds. It doesn't benefit from the Met's endowment and the primary way it does that is through the Met Gala.

• 15:51Haley Sacks?

  In order to go to the Met Gala, it's like for with most charity events, if you wanted to go, you could go, you just buy a ticket. But this is a charity event that even if you have the money to buy a ticket and you'll walk us through, of course, I hope how much the tickets are this year, because I want that all that data, but you're not allowed to just buy a ticket. Are you kidding? No, you have to be approved by Ms. Wintour herself.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Yes, so this has evolved greatly over the years, I would say. Yeah, but it used to be kind of this sort of stuffy, old fashioned society event where, you know, rich people who lived on the Upper East Side of New York would buy a ticket. They would go, they would have a nice evening at the museum and that would raise sufficient funds and that was kind of that.

• 16:31Haley Sacks?

  When I was a babysitter on the Upper East Side for a boy named Winthrop, but then I had like other clients too, you know, I'd get to Fifth Avenue, whatever, I had to babysit once for the parents going to the Met Gala, like just a rich couple.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  So those people have kind of been shunted.

• 16:48Haley Sacks?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  I would say, and there was, I think this has kind of disappeared. Well, I think that the whole world, this is a topic for another pod, but I think the whole world of Upper East Side polite charity events, like that's all really changed. I used to cover those events when I was just starting my career as a journalist in New York Magazine around 2008 and I, I just feel like there's a lot less of that and it's all really changed. But anyway, yeah, so it used to be that sort of event in New York.

• 17:15Haley Sacks?

  Talk us through.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  So when Anna took it over in 1995, a ticket for one person was $1,000. In 2025, tickets for one person were $75,000.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  And tables in 2025 started at $350,000.

• 17:32Haley Sacks?

  That's so crazy. But I think it's important to note that because it is a charity event, that is tax deductible.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yes, but I guess it's complicated with the tax deductions. And you probably know more about that than me, but I did pull because I knew you wanted to talk about that. I'm not an accountant, I'm a journalist. But The New York Times did a story about this in 2025, so about a year ago, by Benjamin Applebaum. And I can tell you, I can tell you what he wrote about this because he was kind of saying that in this piece, it's called "The Really Unfair Thing About the Met Gala." He says, "What does stick in my craw is that the Met gets to reap the benefits of larger federal tax breaks than your local church or soup kitchen. Americans with bigger incomes get larger income tax deductions on every dollar they donate to charity. If the famous and fabulous people who glided up the Met's blue carpeted steps

• 18:24Speaker 02

  at the Costume Institute's annual gala on Monday evening actually paid for their own tickets, which ran 75K per person, they could deduct most of the cost. For some of them, that could amount to a discount of about 30% off the price of admission."

• 18:36Haley Sacks?

  So when something is tax deductible, it doesn't mean that it's free?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:39Haley Sacks?

  It just means that you're getting some, some sort of offset to your taxable income with it.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Exactly. So you don't pay taxes on that part that you're deducting and the part that you, I guess you pay for like the cost of like your meal and the entertainment. And it's the part that is like the charitable donation that is protected, right?

• 18:56Haley Sacks?

  Exactly. So they have to, yeah, they have to value how much like the rest of it is. And then whatever is left over is what's tax deductible.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Right. So then some people will argue, and I think that what this piece is basically arguing is that like, you know, if a billionaire donates to the Met Gala, they reduce their tax bill, which means the government collects less revenue, which means that a subsidy is in effect going to the Costume Institute versus, say,

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Healthcare for people who really need it.

• 19:28Haley Sacks?

  Look, there's a lot of issues with the tax code. It was written by the people that it protects. So, you know, and that's like a bigger, deeper issue that just is part of living in America. That like, you know, so much of tax deductions and things and like how it's protected is just because of like the fact that it's people protecting themselves. But I will say it is good to donate to the arts.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  And that's one argument that I've heard repeatedly for why it's fine that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, Bezos are sponsoring, AKA funding this year's gala in part because isn't this what billionaires are supposed to do is to give their money to museums and to the arts. And not everyone agrees with that, but that is an argument in defense of them being involved that I've heard a lot.

• 20:14Haley Sacks?

  I do agree that billionaires should bankroll the arts like 100%. I think there needs to be like so many grants for artists and like free museums and all of that. But I think that what's happening with the Bezos is something that we're seeing with a lot of billionaires where they understand the power of media.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:32Haley Sacks?

  And it's not something that you can, it is something that you can just buy, but it's also something that's like very sort of mercurial and like needs to like be created first. And Vogue has all of that cachet. And so their connection to Vogue, to me, feels much more like they are trying to own the narrative of themselves versus actually from like a good place in their hearts, trying to contribute to the museum.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the cynical counter argument, or maybe not even cynical, but the counter argument to that point that, oh, they're doing what they're supposed to do. They're giving their money to this thing is that they're using fashion and entertainment in the Met Gala and Vogue, et cetera, to launder their, their images.

• 21:13Haley Sacks?

  Do you agree with that? I think that's true.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I think that, um, you know, I was talking to tech journalist Taylor Lorenz about this on my podcast recently because we're seeing a lot of these tech billionaires just kind of show up in fashion and it's weird. It's really unexpected to see Mark Zuckerberg sitting front row.

• 21:29Haley Sacks?

  A product, yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  And she made the point, and I, and I think it's a good one, that they're using these spaces where they can just show. Go up, get photographed. They don't have to answer any questions. They just sit there to kind of seem like cool and okay, you know? So when Anna took on the Met, there was no sponsorship. It was purely about charity. And one of her publishers at Vogue from over the years told me like, we were not allowed to monetize that. It was just purely charity. So now that has changed.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Vogue sells sponsorships of the content that it creates of the gala. I mean, publishing is not what it was today in 1999, obviously. So now Vogue sells those sponsorships for like mega, mega bucks.

• 22:15Haley Sacks?

  Yeah. So let's talk about the media impact value because I feel like we haven't even touched on the fact that the carpet of the Met Gala actually has a bigger media impact value than the Super Bowl. So think about the fact that like, it's a known thing that advertisers blow all their money on Super Bowl ads, but actually the, because so many people are watching it. So like, that's a great place to really double down. But the Met Gala has the same, has more of an impact in the media than the Super Bowl does. And so let's talk about those numbers because I know that those are quantified, like how much each of those are.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  I think what we know about the value of being there is that it's really how it pertains to Vogue's business. And I think you can just see this in Conde Nast's business model as it stands today and as it's evolving today. So they're kind of trying to, what they're doing is they're monetizing the Met Gala very effectively. So they're trying to come up with other events that they can monetize in the same way. That's why we're seeing the Vanity Fair Oscar Party kind of evolve into something that's a little bit more like the Met Gala with their live stream that they did this year. I think GQ, GQ's like man of the year event and stuff like that. Vogue is doing Vogue World. It's sort of like they're doing these events just that they can, so they can post about that. So they can sell ads against the post.

• 23:41Speaker 03

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• 24:40Haley Sacks?

  So how much do they pay? Because I know they always have an amazing performer. How much do they pay them?

• 24:45Speaker 02

  So in 2015, Rihanna was paid around a million bucks to perform, as I reported in my book, Anna, the Biography. And then we also know that in 2024, when the entertainment was Ariana Grande and Cynthia Revo, the entertainment costs were around $1.3 million. And then in 2025, we know that the entertainment costs were about $1.2 million. That was Usher and Stevie Wonder performing.

• 25:12Haley Sacks?

  And do you know how much it costs to actually just put on the gala? Like who puts that bill?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  So we can see, so we can see in the tax filings what the fundraising events cost the Costume Institute. And it's primarily the Met Gala that is those fundraising costs. So in 2025, the Costume Institute spent nearly $7 million on fundraising events.

• 25:33Haley Sacks?

  Okay, so around $7 million.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  It earned, yes, and it raised, excuse me, $31 million.

• 25:39Haley Sacks?

  Wow.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  At the Met Gala.

• 25:40Haley Sacks?

  It's a good return.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Anna has topped her haul.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  I think just about every year.

• 25:48Haley Sacks?

  But what's amazing is that the event both raises money for the Costume Institute, but it also generates so much money for Vogue because they monetize the content that they're making about it.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 26:00Haley Sacks?

  And that's not being donated. So it's, she's so smart. It's like a juggernaut. Like it's like they're, she's, get you a girl who can do both. She's raising money and she's making money.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  So I do know that in 2022, Vogue charged a million dollars for two six-second spots over the course of two hours in the Met Gala livestream. And that reporting comes from The Business of Fashion.

• 26:23Haley Sacks?

  But not to mention, like, just all the money they're making on the views. Like, they're selling spots.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:28Haley Sacks?

  But then they're also just, like, getting so many followers. They're having such a, like, they're owning the feed. Like, when you go on your phone the first Monday in May, all that you see is the Met Gala.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Exactly. And then I think it's safe to say, too, that the celebrities are benefiting and profiting as well because, let's say, you have a contract with a big brand like Dior and you have to wear Dior a certain number of times throughout the year. Well, then you're, you're checking that box or whatever it may be.

• 26:52Haley Sacks?

  Is the gala more expensive in certain years over others? Like, what dictates how much it costs?

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Well, I think they just try to make, raise more money every single year. And Anna has also tried to keep it smaller and more exclusive, as much as I hate to use that overused word, you know, thinking that, you know, we'll charge more, like, we'll be able to charge more if it feels more exclusive.

• 27:17Haley Sacks?

  Everything should be exclusive. It really does. Scarcity drives up the price.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  I think that you could also argue that the optics are getting challenging just because of inequality in the country right now.

• 27:28Haley Sacks?

  Yeah.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  And I interviewed for my Backdoor newsletter recently someone from the group Everyone Hates Elon that's planning a protest of Jeff Bezos pegged to the Met Gala in New York City.

• 27:40Haley Sacks?

  I've heard there's a lot of people are, you know, they got their, they got their, their markers out. They're making their signs. Like, they're ready to go.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the Bezos funding of this year's event has been hugely controversial, as we've discussed. And this group effectively... Demonstrated at their wedding in Venice.

• 27:59Haley Sacks?

  Oh, yeah, that was, they did a good job.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  They made a big banner that they unfurled and sort of like a plaza in Venice.

• 28:04Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, that was great.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Bezos should pay his tax, but that was picked up by like every single news outlet. Because they got the right picture, the right words, it created the perfect sort of viral moment. So they're planning something. I don't know what exactly they're going to do. But anyway, the person from this group, Everyone Hates Elon, who I interviewed, said, "I don't think this stuff is that fun anymore." And I, I wonder if that's kind of like the core thing that the gala has to overcome these days is, you know, it kind of expects the audience to lavish praise and attention and fandom on all of these people who get to be there, who get to walk up the steps because they're paid for or because they were able to pay this, you know, extraordinary, exorbitant amount of money.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Meanwhile, there's just so much suffering and, and income inequality is just, you know, getting exacerbated. I'm sure you have all the stats on that, the K-shaped economy, all of that. So I think the optics around the event have gotten a little bit more challenging since COVID.

• 29:01Haley Sacks?

  I think that's such a good point, and I feel like with celebrity culture in general, something that draws people to it is that it is this form of escapism, like,

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:12Haley Sacks?

  We can lose ourselves in an episode of The Kardashians or, you know, looking at pictures of, you know, a celebrity on the Daily Mail. And it takes you out of your own life for a minute. But as the temperature in the company, in the country has turned up and, you know, wages have stayed the same, inflation has gotten crazy, student debt, no one can own a home, all of these things about how the American dream is just sort of dead. And like, we need a new American dream. I think that it's been a lot harder to embrace that escapism.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. That's exactly what this protester was saying.

• 29:47Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, I think that's really true, but I also wonder, despite the fact that, yes, that's true, how much that will actually change because at the end of the day, that's more a... Thought, but it doesn't really, the way that the media is run right now is so algorithm based. And so Meta, whether they're going to admit it or not, as like a sponsor of the Met Gala is obviously, when you open your phone, no matter who you are, on the day of the Met Gala, you're being pushed that content. So despite the fact that like, yes, it is a little dystopian, it doesn't mean that it's not going to still every year get bigger and like have more value. You know what I mean? It's sort of like out, it's it's too big to fail.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  I think that there is a risk that people don't go because of controversies associated with it. You know, I did hear about stars that were a little wary of going when they did Karl Lagerfeld because that was really controversial.

• 30:42Haley Sacks?

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  That's the other thing. It's like Anna has no problem, you know, staging these elaborate homages to these very controversial people. Karl Lagerfeld was a controversial dude.

• 30:52Haley Sacks?

  It would take the biggest people taking a stand, like the Kardashians and like all the other, like Sydney Sweeney and the big people. But guess what? Sydney Sweeney's lingerie line is sponsored by Jeff Bezos and Kim Kardashian is loves to vacation on his boat.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think people need it. I think people need it. I mean, I think that the thing that, I don't know, it's kind of like, where do we end up with the current state of inequality?

• 31:17Haley Sacks?

  Let's solve it.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Where do we end up? I just, I don't know. I don't know where we end up, but I see it in my reporting. Every single day, I see it in fashion. I mean, I'm a fashion journalist, fashion culture journalist. I interview the ICs, very important clients who are the top spenders at brands like Chanel and Dior. Some of these women spend half a million to seven figures and up a year on on clothes and they're rewarded with these perks. And then on the other end of the spectrum is Shein and Timu and instant fashion that's washing up on beaches in Ghana and causing, you know, a whole host of problems, owing to pollution and all that. So there's just. The K, it's like the K-shaped economy. Like it manifests everywhere.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  I don't know where we end up. But I do see this tension even within fashion that is an industry that is very sort of friendly to wealth and to wealthy people. And there's been a big movement in fashion lately to kind of open it up a bit more. Like let people who are just fans kind of participate in this industry. And the Met Gala is the very opposite of that. And I think that's what makes it fascinating. People are like, what is it that that makes Anna Wintour decide to pick you? That you get to go and walk up those steps in a dress custom made for you by one of the world's greatest designers? You know, what is it about you? Like, who does she deem worthy of that honor? But that has all just come under a lot more scrutiny in the last six years.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  And I don't, I don't know where it ends up, but I see the tension. I see the strain in just so many aspects of my reporting.

• 32:53Haley Sacks?

  Have you heard any solutions that you think are worth acknowledging?

• 32:58Speaker 02

  From what I know, I don't see a lot coming from the Vogue side because, you know, she put Lauren Sanchez in the magazine in these big profiles twice, written by Chloe Mal, the new head of editorial content. One, of course, was the digital cover story pegged to her wedding. And then the other was a profile in the magazine, which had that famous photo of her and Jeff Bezos embracing and

• 33:22Haley Sacks?

  My god, in the car.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  He's wearing a cowboy hat or something like that. Any leave of this, I think.

• 33:26Haley Sacks?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  So, you know, she, she had to have known that that was going to be, I mean, the first time she did it, it was so controversial. Their wedding was being protested. That was so controversial. I mean, they had to have known that people were going to, you know, have big feelings about that, which they did. And then now they're funding the Met Gala. So I don't know that she cares. And then according to my sources and other reporting that I've seen, Anna has wanted to do a John Galliano exhibition.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Which would be another really controversial one because of his past antisemitic remarks that got him fired from Dior.

• 34:00Haley Sacks?

  Mm-hmm. So she really is able to separate the art from the artist and the money from the billionaire. But it's also a bit of you scratch, I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Do you think that Kim Kardashian's Vogue cover was like a turning point for them?

• 34:13Speaker 02

  That's what fans say. I mean, do I think it was a turning point? Um, yeah, I think it was a turning point for her, maybe more so than Vogue. I don't know how Vogue gets by without acknowledging influencer culture.

• 34:24Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, like, do you think we'll see Alex Earl on the carpet this year?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Addison Rae has gone. I think people were like, ew, like, you know, people don't want to see, you know, TikTok stars there. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how Vogue gets by as an entertainment media outlet without acknowledging influencer culture. And I think that Kim Kardashian is sort of the pinnacle of that, or has been.

• 34:45Haley Sacks?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  You know, she was the first sort of mega influencer celebrity. But I think that what it does, I think that it's important to remember, like, let's not, whatever it does to Vogue, you know, Vogue is a brand in decline, like, no matter how you slice it. Um, but I think that the bigger impact is for the stars themselves because when you go to the Met Gala, when Anna Wintour is choosing you, you still get that fashion world credibility. What does that lead to? That leads to lucrative endorsement deals. It leads to more photo shoots, which could maybe lead to more lucrative endorsement deals. Maybe it leads to you starting your own fashion line. Like, Kim, Kim and her sisters have done so many different brands, and she obviously has Skims, which is worth several billion dollars now.

• 35:27Haley Sacks?

  And also, it leads to so much content for yourself. Like, now that we own, we all own our own channels, you see everyone monetizing the Met Gala also for their own worth. Like, they might not be paid to go, and they're not paying for their outfits or their, you know, shoes or jewelry, but then they're actually going to make money also from what they're producing from it. I don't know, though, Amy, like, I feel like maybe we are gonna get to go soon. Like, she is really loosening the reins. I mean, she used to be so anti-Kardashian there, then now we got, even Khloe gets to go sometimes if she wants. Like, she's really, she's much more democratic, it seems like, in these, in the new age.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Well, the Kardashians, according to one of my Met Gala sources that I interviewed for Anna, the biography, the Kardashians used to call and try to go.

• 36:13Haley Sacks?

  Obsessed.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  And they would be denied. And then, one year, Anna... Some would say she caved.

• 36:21Haley Sacks?

  Well, didn't have to do it.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  And Kim went, but Kim was with Kanye.

• 36:24Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, who was Biggie.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Who was connected to Anna, may still be, I don't know, was at the time. And I think that helped grease the wheels for, for Kim to go. When Kim first went, she was pregnant, she wore that floral Givenchy dress with the gloves. Do you remember?

• 36:40Haley Sacks?

  Of course.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  People said she looked like a couch. That was like the meme the next day. It was like, she was like a floral, like chintz couch. Yeah, so then she went and then she was on the cover of Vogue with Kanye, pegged to their wedding. So, and the, and the same thing happened actually with Lauren Sanchez Bezos. She was in Vogue, on the cover, pegged her wedding, or she went to the Met Gala. And then she was on the cover of Vogue, pegged to her wedding.

• 37:03Haley Sacks?

  Meanwhile, that is proof that money cannot buy style or influence. Cause I remember Kim's outfits every year, like, it's like burned into my mind. I could, blindfold me and I'll sketch you what she looked like at that gala. But Lauren Bezos, I have no freaking idea what that girl wore.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  I don't think she went last year, but the year before, and she wore a dress that was like a black strapless Oscar de la Renta dress with like shattered glass on it.

• 37:27Haley Sacks?

  Oh yeah, and she was just snatched, like her whole thing is just being like, ugh, I can't breathe, like I'm so skinny.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I guess you could use the word snatched.

• 37:35Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, snatched, I guess.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Like a corseted.

• 37:37Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, a corseted.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  A corseted, yeah, yeah. But do you think that they should not have those people there?

• 37:41Haley Sacks?

  No, I think that the Kardashians have to be there. They are the most impactful, but I think that someone like Alex Earl is very interesting because she clearly sets the culture. Her brand just did a million dollars in sales in its first five minutes. Like, that's not something to ignore.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:59Haley Sacks?

  And she's been on a Vogue cover with her sister, but in the same way, she's not fashion in the way. And maybe, you know, maybe from their relationship with, obviously Kanye was a turning point for the Kardashians because he then made them so much more fashionable.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Cause he was already in the world.

• 38:15Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  And they wanted to be.

• 38:17Haley Sacks?

  And threw out all of Kim's ugly clothing and then like put her in this upper echelon. And now she's like, okay, everything has to be archival and I have, you know, the best stylist in the world. And, you know, it all matters so much more to her now. She's become really educated and I think passionate about it in her own right. But then someone like Alex Earl, she's not high fashion. She's really just like, she markets to the masses. And while she's, while she's gonna wear the like new Saint Laurent heel in the way that like every girl is. It's not like she's pulling out these crazy looks in the way that Kim was. And so I wonder, I really do, I think she probably will be included.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. I think that would make sense. And I think for her, as with Kim, it would be great for her to go because that still opens the door for her opportunities in fashion. The same way that Kim, having that fashion world credibility, I think that really only helps her with SKIMS. Even though SKIMS is not a luxury price point.

• 39:15Haley Sacks?

  No, but with any influencer brand, you're selling the idea of the influencer. It's like.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Yes, and how stylish they are perceived to be in the world.

• 39:23Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, like when you see, you always have to ask yourself, would you buy this without any label on it? Like a car, you know, would you, are you buying that car because it says BMW? Or are you buying it because you actually like know about like the horsepower and like the, you know, all the different gears and all the different features? Like, most people are just buying it because it's BMW. And the same thing has to do with influencer marketing.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:47Haley Sacks?

  You know, you don't actually know what's going, you don't actually know what's in SKIMS. Does anyone actually know how much cotton is in the bra or anything? No, they're not comparing that to like a different bra.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Is there cotton in the bra?

• 39:56Haley Sacks?

  That's what I'm saying. Like, it's like, most of it is pretty flammable. But like, you're really just looking at it as a gateway to maybe feeling like Kim.

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• 41:09Haley Sacks?

  Overall, though, like you've given us a lot of numbers. We know that it's gotten like so much more expensive. The media impact value is crazy. I personally do think that there is a lot of value for brands to be part of it. I know you're sort of on the outs, but

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Well, I just, no, I just don't know. I really don't know because I think it's impossible to quantify because the numbers that I've seen are coming from companies that Conde Nast invested in, or it's coming from Conde Nast itself. And that those companies have every reason to make the numbers seem really super high.

• 41:38Haley Sacks?

  You don't know who to trust.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  I think we just don't know what it's worth. And like, actually, the people who I would trust on that issue are people who work at the brands. I would want to know how they think about it, like how they think about what they want to get out of their marketing dollars. Is what they get out of their marketing dollars keeping Anna Wintour in Vogue happy and on their side? Is that worth it? Is what they get out of their marketing dollars, um, you know, having some amazing model or celebrity look fabulous in their clothes? Like, I just, I really don't know.

• 42:08Haley Sacks?

  And you also, I would love to see the data of like a brand that's not known who gets to go. Cause you know, like, like Lewis Hamilton bought a table and brought all of these black designers. And I think that they were like lesser known. And I would love to see like, does that actually drive sales? You know, or is that just like a? How does it actually impact someone who isn't like a Gap or a Calvin Klein or someone like in the culture if you are part of it?

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Right. And then for those brands, like if you are a Gap or an H and L, which like sometimes they have their red carpet moments, right? What are they get, you know, what are they getting out of that? And they probably have more money than a lot of brand, you know, lesser known brands, lesser known designer brands to go and make a splash. But yeah, I, so I just think it's really hard to say.

• 42:54Haley Sacks?

  But overall, like, where do you stand on it? Like, are you bullish on the Met Gala?

• 42:58Speaker 02

  I think the big question is what happens when Anna really steps aside.

• 43:02Haley Sacks?

  Yeah, like Khloe Malam, sorry, she does not have the riz to pull this off. But I do think it sort of stands on its own at this point.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know how much Khloe is getting trained to run the event. I, I, I do think that Anna is a force and has made it really, really successful and has enabled it to bring in the tens of millions that it is now bringing in. And I don't, I don't know from my reporting that Khloe is being trained to take that on and to do that. And, you know, I think it's tough. I think it's a lot of politics. Keeping one celebrity happy must be a nightmare.

• 43:30Haley Sacks?

  Let alone so many.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Let alone hundreds or however many people are going. So I think Anna has figured it out. She does it very effectively. This year is actually a really big deal for her and she's not big on like, you know, talking about herself, but this year is a big deal for her because the event opens the Anna Wintour Galleries in the museums. And that money, that, those galleries are, are made possible by the money that she has raised and that's why they're named for her. So this should be like, you know, her crowning achievement, having planned this event since 1995. As it was described to me by sources, you know, it's sort of the metaphorical lifting of the Costume Institute out of the basement where it has sort of historically been relegated, you know, to these new, this new space that it has within the museum, like a really prominent physical space.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  So it's a big deal.

• 44:18Haley Sacks?

  With Vogue, it basically, although it existed before Anna, it really is all predicated on her good taste. Like, it's basically a brand built around like this one woman's approval that we deem extraordinary. And I buy into it. Like, I saw her the other week at a play and I was like gasping to like be in the same room as her.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  She looks like AI, doesn't she?

• 44:39Haley Sacks?

  It's just like, and she's so famous. Like, you know, and you see people that you like know their image.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Well, she gets it done every day, but her hair is so perfect and her clothes, yeah.

• 44:46Haley Sacks?

  All of this exists from her image and from her point of view. And so when you talk about Vogue as a legacy brand where she's now trying to pass it on to the next generation, it's almost like succession. Like, how realistic is that really? That anyone will be able to like uphold that? When like, there's not another person in the culture so singularly responsible for what's chic and what's not chic?

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I think this is why it's really tough. What happens to Vogue without her? I mean, she's still there. She's still overseeing it. So it's not like, it's not her Vogue anymore, even though she appointed Chloe Mal had of editorial content. But, um, yeah, so I don't know. I think that the future of the Met Gala hinges on what happens after she leaves and how the succession is handled there because we don't know.

• 45:41Haley Sacks?

  I almost feel like the Met Gala will survive longer than Vogue will.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, Conde Nast, as we discussed, has a vested interest in staying involved in Vogue or whoever's running Vogue, remaining the chief planner. So, yeah, we'll see. I mean, I have been told that Anna is training Chloe in all aspects of the job, which would include planning the Met Gala. But I've also heard from some Met sources that they haven't really seen that. So I, I just don't really know.

• 46:10Haley Sacks?

  You know her very intimately. Like, you've literally, no one has researched her as well as you. You probably know more about her than she knows about herself. Like, I think we forget a lot about ourselves.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:20Haley Sacks?

  So it's like.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Or we don't know, yeah.

• 46:21Haley Sacks?

  Yeah. Knowing all of that, like, what would you say about her legacy?

• 46:25Speaker 02

  She wants to be remembered for her philanthropy. I think she will be remembered more for who she is as this sort of Miranda Priestly. Esque figure.

• 46:35Haley Sacks?

  Thank you so much.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 46:36Haley Sacks?

  Amy, this was so fun. You're, I could talk to you for hours. You are so brilliant.

• 48:04Speaker 06

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