Opulence in the Face of Suffering: The Met Gala and Historical Echoes of Elite Self-Congratulation
Brian Sankarsingh reflects on the Met Gala
TO OUR LOYAL READERS: Hi everyone, it’s Brian here. Before we dive into today’s article, I’d like to ask for a small favour. This year, we're aiming to grow our community of readers. We're proud to be in the top 1% of Substack publishers for consistent content — which means you can count on us for a steady stream of engaging, thought-provoking articles, all completely free.
We don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you enjoy what you read here, please consider sharing our Substack with a friend or colleague. It’s a simple way to support our work and help us reach more curious minds.
Thanks so much! Now, here’s today’s article
The Met Gala, an annual fundraising gala for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City, has come to symbolize a modern spectacle of luxury, fashion, and celebrity excess. What began as a relatively modest charity event has evolved into an ostentatious pageant where billionaires, influencers, and celebrities flaunt designer garments often valued in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. This display of extravagance, meticulously photographed and dissected by the media, unfolds while large segments of the global population grapple with economic inequality, housing insecurity, food scarcity, and climate disasters. In its self-congratulatory splendor, the Met Gala echoes other moments in history when elites reveled in opulence while the world outside their palaces burned.
One of the most infamous historical parallels is the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in pre-revolutionary France. Versailles was a gilded cocoon of aristocratic detachment, where the French monarchy surrounded itself with luxury, ritual, and pageantry. The powdered wigs, jeweled bodices, and baroque banquets of the time mirror the carefully curated red-carpet ensembles of the Met Gala, each chosen to dazzle and dominate headlines. Meanwhile, in the streets of Paris and the French countryside, commoners starved. Bread riots became routine. Economic mismanagement and social inequality festered into revolutionary anger. When the words “Let them eat cake” were put into Marie Antoinette mouth, they gave voice, however inaccurately, to the profound disconnect between elite indulgence and popular suffering. That same disconnect is visible today, albeit cloaked in the language of art, fashion, and philanthropy.
Another echo can be found in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century United States. Industrialists like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt amassed unprecedented wealth, building colossal mansions and hosting extravagant parties. These were the original captains of industry and they were praised for their innovation, but exploitative in their labor practices. As they celebrated themselves in private clubs and marble halls, immigrants toiled in unsafe factories for meager wages, and child labor was widespread. The stark economic divide was both visible and normalized, not unlike the current era in which billionaires fund space tourism or walk red carpets dripping in diamonds while many Americans remain uninsured, underemployed, or homeless.
The Met Gala might argue its charitable purpose, but the scale and style of its spectacle dwarf its philanthropy. The event raises millions, yes, but those millions pale compared to the net worths represented on the red carpet or the price tags of a single custom gown. What’s more, the performative nature of the Gala often renders its themes hollow. “Camp,” “Heavenly Bodies,” or “Gilded Glamour” are chosen to provoke artistic creativity, but they also reveal the irony of wealth parodying itself while remaining unchallenged. There’s a sense that the elites know how absurd their indulgence appears, and instead of retreating from it, they revel in its opulent absurdity.
This is not to argue that art and fashion have no place in society, or that charity is inherently suspect. Rather, it is to suggest that celebrations of wealth wrapped in artistic pretense often serve to insulate elites from the consequences of the inequalities they benefit from. The Met Gala is a mirror of our times: a decadent carnival of curated self-image, staged while economic systems teeter, public services erode, and planetary crises mount. Like Versailles, like the Gilded Age mansions, it is a temple to appearance, built on the suffering that is carefully curated out of frame.
In every era, elites have found ways to celebrate themselves amid ruin. The Met Gala is merely our era’s most glittering example. Whether future generations will look back on these images as cultural treasures or as evidence of hubris depends on what we choose to do outside the ballroom, beyond the carpet, and in the streets where real change begins.
Not all Ends Were Met
—a working-class elegy
I watched them walk in gowns of gold
Each hem a month of rent unpaid
A train that swept like winter's cold
Through headlines where my debts are laid
The cameras flash like worshipful eyes
On costumes extravagant and bright
Sculpted diamonds mesmerize
Unaware of the commoner’s plight
The fridge hums low, and the lights flicker
I avert my eyes from the collection letters
My pay comes in, but bills come quicker
I sit in chains in the prison of debtors
The theme this year was "Tailored for you"
While down on Earth I patched a coat
How can my message ever get through
About the thirst that burns my throat
My child asked me why we hide
The calls from names we cannot pay
I kissed her hair and stepped outside
To scream where no one looked my way
Their ends are tied in silk and pearls
Their Met is met with praise and cheer
They adored like kings and earls
My ends were not Met. Not this year
Bio: Brian Sankarsingh is a poetic firebrand, a sharp, thoughtful storyteller who walks the crossroads where Caribbean folklore, social justice, and the human condition collide. He is a truth-seeker who questions political tribes, challenges lazy platitudes, and writes with a deep pulse of empathy, always pushing for nuance whether you're exploring grief, cultural identity, or the monsters that haunt cane fields and hearts alike. He blends advocacy and art seamlessly. He is part historian, part philosopher, part bard, driven by a hunger to illuminate overlooked stories and empower marginalized voices.
Thanks for reading Seeking Veritas Blank Pages to Bold Voices. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.