Anna Wintour was a master of tact as she talked about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s controversial 2021 Met Gala look in a new interview.
Asked about the New York Democrat’s white gown, which was emblazoned with the phrase “Tax the Rich” in red on the back, the former editor-in-chief of Vogue told The New Yorker’s David Remnick she didn’t learn about the message on the lawmaker’s outfit until after the VIP event.
“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 point.
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“It wasn’t until the next day that I understood what had happened,” Wintour said of Ocasio-Cortez’s look, which was designed by Aurora James of Brother Vellies. “So, fortunately, I had a wonderful evening.”
Choosing her next words shrewdly, Wintour went on to say, “I think everybody uses fashion in different ways, and, obviously, that was something that was important to her.”
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While the lawmaker certainly intended to make a statement with her dress, some found the stunt ironic, given how a seat at the elite, invite-only gala cost an estimated $35,000 in 2021. (In 2025, that price had reportedly leaped to $75,000.)
Ocasio-Cortez dismissed the backlash at 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 dress caused another minor scandal earlier this summer when the bipartisan House Ethics Committee concluded that Ocasio-Cortez did not pay a fair market rate for the dress and her accessories, in violation of House ethics rules.
The committee decided it would be “appropriate” for the prominent progressive to pay designer James $2,733.28 on top of her original $990.76 rental fee, but determined the lawmaker’s violation of the ethics code had not been “knowing and willful.”
