Step aside Met Gala: The BPL’s ‘People’s Ball’ is a fashion bonanza for the masses

By Scott Lynch

Linda E. Johnson, Brooklyn Public Library President and CEO (Scott Lynch)

Last night at its Central Library at Grand Army Plaza, the Brooklyn Public Library celebrated its 125th birthday with the glittering, refreshingly raucous “People’s Ball,” an-open-to-all-comers fashion show and dance party held in that august building’s soaring lobby gallery.

“The idea is to share the same roof and come together after these tough couple of years, to dress up, and walk the catwalk, and show one another who we are and how we roll in Brooklyn,” Jakab Orsos, the library’s vp of arts and culture, told Brooklyn Magazine. “Everybody deserves his or her or their own Met Gala, and this is our version.”

The event, as it happens, was held on the eve of the much more exclusive celebrity-studded Met Gala across the water.

There were some professional performers and special guests, including DJ Rimarkable, Paris the Hip-Hop Juggler, Opera Gaga, Souleo, Inyang Bassey, and the “Black is Beautiful” pioneering Grandassa Models. Authors Isaac Fitzgerald and Scaachi Koul kept things loose and light with a constant stream of banter during the runway show.

Souleo (Scott Lynch)

Really though, the night belonged to the people, as hundreds of “ordinary” Brooklynites strutted and sashayed and danced the night away. “My mom made my dress for me, just for tonight,” said Shanon Shaw of East New York. “I think it’s incredible that regular people who are not celebrities get a chance to express themselves in the grandest possible way, just like the Met Gala. We’re awesome, fashion-forward people, so why not show up and do our thing out here.”

Dewry Duroi Bradford from Brownsville agreed. “The Met Gala is for the hifalutin people, people of affluence,” he said. “So we’re here to say, we’re creative too, we’re amazing too, we’re fresh, we know what it is, we have something to say, and that’s what’s up.”

Brooklyn Magazine’s Scott Lynch was there, and he snapped these images from the “red carpet” and catwalk.