Creator of AOC’s infamous Tax the Rich dress owes more than $1million for A-list gala featuring Meghan Markle
The woman who made Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s famous ‘Tax the Rich’ dress at the 2021 Met Gala is being sued for failing to pay party planners over $1million.
Aurora James helped make headlines when the left-wing Congresswoman appeared in the gown, on request from longtime Vogue boss Anna Wintour, who ordered a designer to ‘dress AOC for the Met.’
James, a California-based street artist also known as The Velvet Bandit, is being sued alongside her nonprofit The 15 Percent Pledge by high-end event planners The Gathery in Manhattan Supreme Court.
They argue that James insisted the planners continue to work on the million-dollar gala she was throwing, which included guests as high-profile as Meghan Markle, even though her company was failing to pay them.
After making initial payments on the bill, which amounted to $1.5million, the money stopped coming in, the lawsuit argues.
Despite missing two consecutive payments, James ‘personally directed the project and repeatedly induced TGI to continue performing even after payment defaults had begun.’
She also approved changes that made the event even more expensive, while promising that payment would come without anything to back it up.
The February 7 gala was hosted by CNN’s Abby Phillip and honored Beyonce’s mother, Tina Knowles, with guests like Markle and Kimora Lee Simmons in attendance.
Aurora James (pictured right), the woman who made Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s famous ‘Tax the Rich’ dress at the 2021 Met Gala, is being sued for failing to pay party planners over $1million
James (pictured), a California-based street artist also known as The Velvet Bandit, is being sued alongside her nonprofit The 15 Percent Pledge by high-end event planners The Gathery in Manhattan Supreme Court
Barry O’Connell, an attorney for The Gathery, told Mediaite how disappointed his clients are in what’s become of The 15 Percent Pledge, a nonprofit meant to help black businesses.
‘The Gathery was always excited about the relationship with 15 Percent Pledge. They were personal donors to the cause. There’s a lot of hypocrisy here,’ he said.
The Daily Mail has reached out to The 15 Percent Pledge for comment.
The socialist firebrand attended the event with her then-boyfriend Riley Roberts after getting ready at The Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side.
AOC boasted at the time about the surge in Google searches for the words ‘tax the rich’.
She wrote on Instagram: ‘Surge in people looking up and discussing our f****d up tax code is and how we fix it so we can fund childcare, healthcare, climate action and student loan forgiveness for all? Aurora James understood the assignment.’
But she has been slammed for supporting the event by many who say she simply wanted to enjoy the limelight while trying to pass it off as a political protest in yet another example of her tone-deaf hypocrisy.
AOC, who previously posed on the cover of Vanity Fair, drives a $35,000 Tesla and claims to be ‘100% grass roots from the Bronx’ despite growing up in a wealthy NYC suburb.
Benjamin Bronfman, Aurora James, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Riley Roberts depart The 2021 Met Gala
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In a proud Instagram post about the event and her choice of outfit, AOC said: ‘The medium is the message. Proud to work with Aurora James as a sustainably focused, Black woman immigrant designer who went from starting her dream Brother Vellies at a flea market in Brooklyn to winning the CFDA against all odds – and then work together to kick open the doors at the Met. The time is now for childcare, healthcare, and climate action for all. Tax the Rich.
‘And yes, BEFORE anybody starts wilding out – NYC elected officials are regularly invited to and attend the Met due to our responsibilities in overseeing our city’s cultural institutions that serve the public.
‘I was one of several in attendance. Dress is borrowed via Brother Vellies.’
Brother Vellies, James’ luxury brand, is often worn by celebrities such as Beyoncé, Meghan Markle, Zendaya, Rihanna and Lady Gaga, according to the brand’s website.
Ocasio-Cortez was asked by a congressional ethics panel to repay costs associated with her Met Gala appearance in 2025.
The House Ethics Committee released a sprawling 26-page report into AOC’s lavish trip and recommended she pay $3,000. Once she does the probe will be considered finished.
That same dress, along with some accessories from designer Brother Vellies, should’ve cost the progressive over $3,700 in rental fees, the report found.
Her team only paid $990 for the dress, shoes, jewelry, handbag, floral headpiece, according to the committee.
It claimed that the fair market rental price of the dress was just under $3,000, but AOC’s team only paid $300. The tickets to attend the event that year cost $35,000 each.
‘While the Committee did not find that Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s violations were knowing and willful, she nonetheless received impermissible gifts and must bear responsibility for the other conduct that occurred with respect to the delays in payment,’ the report states.
The 10-member ethics panel also concluded that AOC’s ‘conduct was inconsistent with House Rules, laws, and other standards of conduct.’
