Why Big Tech Wore Indie Designers to the Met Gala

Reported by Vogue.

The most interesting fashion story from the 2026 Met Gala wasn't on the carpet — it was in the credits. While Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg skipped the steps entirely, the tech executives who did show up arrived in something unexpected: emerging, independent labels that most of fashion's biggest fans would have to Google. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri wore Kartik Research. VP of fashion Eva Chen wore Proenza Schouler under Rachel Scott's creative direction. Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield and investor Selby Drummond both wore Conner Ives. And Charles Porch — who recently moved from Instagram to OpenAI as VP of global creative partnerships — wore the first-ever men's look from Kallmeyer. According to Vogue, these choices were anything but accidental.

The logic is sharper than it looks. Tech's most powerful players can afford to call any fashion house on the planet. Choosing an emerging designer instead signals something deliberate: taste, access, and a certain cultural fluency that feels increasingly valuable as AI makes creative tools available to everyone. When you're trying to prove you understand culture — not just own it — the Met steps are the most watched arena in fashion, and the label on your back becomes a statement of allegiance. "If the people with the most money, access and power aren't supporting the arts and emerging brands and independent designers, then they're just lifting up those who are already on top," designer Daniella Kallmeyer said plainly.

The Custom Factor

There's also a more practical reality. On a night when the major houses are consumed with dressing Nicole Kidman and her peers in bespoke architecture, the executives who want a truly original look have to look elsewhere. Porch, who spent previous Met Galas in off-the-rack Celine, Tom Ford, and Prada, put it diplomatically: "It's no knock on the bigger brands. But they're dressing Nicole Kidman." His Kallmeyer look came out of a real relationship — he'd DM'd Kallmeyer after spotting Morgan Spector in one of her jackets at her last show, and asked if she'd be open to doing something custom for him. She was. Kartik Research, meanwhile, was connected to Mosseri through Chen, and the brand worked directly with his team to build and style the full look, down to sourcing his Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Several of these executives aren't fashion outsiders stumbling into good taste — Chen and Drummond both came up through magazine editorial, and Porch has spent years bridging tech and culture professionally. Mosseri has worn Wales Bonner, Bode, and Tanner Fletcher to previous Galas. What's shifted is the collective momentum: when multiple senior tech figures arrive at the same event in independent labels, it stops being a coincidence and starts being a signal. Porch framed the connection intuitively: "A lot of them are startups and entrepreneurs — they're building something, which tech people do too."

If tech money starts flowing toward fashion's emerging designers with the same enthusiasm it shows up on the Met carpet, independent labels won't just get a moment — they'll get a movement.

Read the original at Vogue.