Non-celebrities dress up in homemade outfits for charity do dubbed ‘Debt Gala’
The night before celebrities descended upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a very different soiree was underway nearby.
A venue named The Bell House played host to this year’s Debt Gala – an alternative event to the lavish Met Gala, taking place across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Rather than raising money for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in Manhattan, the Debt Gala raises money for those facing heavy medical debt.
At just $35 for a ticket, all proceeds went to the Debt Collective and Dollar For, a medical nonprofit, to help those facing mounting hospital bills.
Though dystopian in its own right (considering the bleak concept of medical debt), the fun-filled event saw many descend on the red carpet to help aid those in need.
This year’s theme was ‘Sleeping Baddies: Slumber Party’, a parody of the Met Gala’s fantasy theme, ‘Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion’ which saw costumes worth £2.2 million (looking at you, Gigi Hadid) grace the red carpet.
Attendees were welcomed with a similar red carpet, modelling their own homemade couture.
Inside, they were treated to drag, comedy and music performances which culminated in the Debt Ball, a massive dance party to end the night.
John St Dennis, an intensive care unit nurse, attended and told the New York Times: ‘The Met Gala is vapid and silly. This is a better function, with a better message.
‘I work in medicine and personally know how people can enter massive debt that ruins their lives.’
A co-founder of the Debt Gala, Molly Gaebe, told the newspaper about the gala’s creation: ‘We were all sitting in a bar together watching coverage of the Met Gala, and we thought: “They all look like they’re having so much fun. Why can’t we, too?”‘
Revellers at the Debt Gala this year raised over $15,000 for medical debt this year – a small drop in the pond of the estimated $220 billion owed by people in the US for medical bills, but a welcome contribution nonetheless.
Braxton Brewington, a spokesperson for the Debt Collective, added: ‘We like to quote from Jean Paul Getty, a very famous capitalist.
‘He says: “If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.”‘
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