Many of the finer details from Jeff Bezos’s enthralling 60th birthday party have been spilled by his indiscreet guests. This despite the fact that Beyoncé, Bill Gates, Oprah et al were instructed to place their phones into sealed pouches on arrival at the billionaire businessman’s Beverly Hills mansion.
We hear that the menu spanned caviar and McDonalds (the Amazon founder and aerospace entrepreneur worked at the fast food chain as a 16 year-old) and that the party décor included a photobooth clad as a tribute to the businessman’s first office.
But the thing that no one in attendance could resist posting on social media was a picture of their outfit. Dressing to the prescribed ‘celestial space-age’ theme allowed for some richly varied (but always richly expensive) interpretations.
Paris Hilton dazzled in a celestial crystal Oscar de la Renta gown, one of the seven dresses that the heiress had apparently worn at her 2023 wedding.
Paris Hilton wore a crystal Oscar de la Renta gown
Ivanka Trump sourced a vintage Roberto Cavalli dress with a spacecraft-wing-esque beaded bodice. Katy Perry’s metallic contoured forehead had grown prosthetic antennae.
Katy Perry dresses as an alien for Jeff Bezos’s party
There were at least half a dozen sightings of designer label Judith Leiber’s novelty UFO clutch bags – a novelty at $5,000 a pop.
There were several sightings of these novelty UFO clutch bags, from the designer label Judith Leiber
But it was the host who attracted the most attention. Not Bezos – we don’t know what he wore, let’s assume a silver suit. Rather his wife-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, who ensured that she was unmissable in a red hot Laura Basci gown and her own bespoke Leiber rocket bag.
Lauren Sanchez wore a red Swarovski crystal gown and accessorised with a novelty rocket bag
Sánchez staged a photoshoot in her boudoir before the party, surrounding herself with a glam squad of four for the occasion. ‘Getting ready is sometimes the best part of the night,’ she told her 398,000 followers on Instagram.
Sánchez’s rich woman look is utterly conspicuous. This is not stealth wealth style – the kind of subtle take on luxury that we came to associate with the billionaire crowd on television’s Succession. Her’s is a look-at-me from space kind of bling (a-ling a-ling a-ling).
It is 54-year-old Sánchez, to whom Bezos has been engaged since spring 2023, who has seemingly brought this previously private billionaire out of his lair. Prior to going public with the former news anchor in January 2023, Bezos had been married to novelist MacKenzie Scott for 25 years and had rarely stepped foot on a red carpet.
Sánchez is the party planner in chief, the launchpad of his new social life – she has rocketed him to a type of fame that he had never entertained before. “She’s a sparkler in Jeff’s life,” according to the broadcasting billionaire Barry Diller, speaking to Vogue.
The Bez-Chezes (surely the portmanteau of choice?) have curated their own super rich club, surrounding themselves with other style-adjacent tycoons – various media agency owners and fashion brand heads (including Tommy Hilfiger) were in attendance, alongside the Hilton and Kardashian dynasties.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez speak onstage during the IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards in Washington, October 2023 CREDIT: Getty
“Jeff Bezos has long been drawn by star power, but his lust for celebrity seems to have increased since his relationship with Lauren Sanchez began,” one Hollywood social insider told The Telegraph.
They are in all the right places – the guestlist for his glamorous birthday is evidence of their draw: on it, billionaire celebrities, tech lords, heiresses and political dynasties – together, the essence of power in America today.”
The Vanderbilts of the Gilded Age certified their status with European couture, posing for black and white images that were printed in the early society columns – Sanchez and Bezos are onto a similar modern day formula, aligning themselves with fashion’s power players to secure visibility.
Bezos and Sánchez spent their first public summer together courting friends like Leonardo DiCaprio on Koru, the former’s sailing yacht, and the largest in the world. They made their first red carpet appearances as a couple, attending Hollywood parties after the Oscars and at the premiere for the new Lord of the Rings on Amazon Prime.
The couple invited American Vogue into their world for its December issue – Sánchez posed in (yet another) gem-encrusted red dress, by Dolce & Gabbana, and posed wrapped around Bezos’s engineering feat, his subterranean 10,000-year clock, dug under the Sierra Diablo mountains. “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a Halloween party [in] here?” she pondered.
When the couple sat on the front row at Dolce & Gabbana’s Milan fashion week show earlier this month, they encapsulated the internet’s favourite fashion trend: the so-called “mob wife” aesthetic. Echoing the leathers, diamonds and furs worn by characters like Carmela Soprano, Sánchez spotted the moment to underscore her filthy rich aesthetic and ran with it.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez watch the Dolce & Gabbana show in Milan, January 13 CREDIT: Reuters
“The mob wife aesthetic is all about drama,” according to a spokesperson for the fashion website Zalando. “It dips into several trends observed on the spring 2024 catwalks including faux fur, animal print, and underwear as outerwear. It’s the antithesis of minimalism.” More is more, certainly, in this couple’s orbit.
It is this spirit and sense of fun that has helped the couple capture the attention of the fashion and celebrity crowd. Who doesn’t want to go to a billionaire’s party?
Next, to their wedding. The date is unknown, but rest assured that no expense will be spared.
Sánchez is undoubtedly going to evolve her look further, working with her stylist Kelly Johnson (Jennifer Lopez’s former stage costume designer) to develop her dream billionaire wife wardrobe. Wearing your wealth is back. And Sánchez is the woman to out-bling.
