Last month, New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, made clear that he had no desire to cozy up with Kardashians and Bezoses when he said he would skip this year’s Met Gala, the marquee event of the city’s increasingly celebrity-filled social calendar.
Yet, on Monday, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, went further in aligning himself with the city’s working class by releasing a photo portfolio highlighting six behind-the-scenes workers that fuel the city’s fashion industry.
“The fashion industry is made possible by the thousands of workers behind the scenes — seamstresses, tailors, retail workers, delivery drivers — whose immense talent and dedication deserves to be celebrated,” the mayor said in a statement emailed to The New York Times. “We’re proud to feature the stories of these hard-working New Yorkers who make our city’s fashion industry second to none.”
Mamdani is not the first mayor to skip the gala. Eric Adams attended only once, as did Bill de Blasio. Michael Bloomberg didn’t attend every year.
The shoot, which the mayor’s office initially released through the website of i-D, a fashion magazine, was shot by Kara McCurdy, a New York-based photographer. McCurdy captured figures including tailors from Pakistan and Mexico; a master tailor at Saks Fifth Avenue; and a Macy’s employee for nearly four decades.
In an apparent nod to Jeff Bezos, a lead sponsor of the gala and the founder of Amazon, the portfolio also included two former Amazon employees who are now advocating for a bill that would require it and similar companies to directly employ workers.
The portfolio was published hours before a Met Gala that has stoked class tensions, particularly over Bezos’s central role. On Monday morning in New York, labor unions from across the country staged the Ball Without Billionaires, an event that highlighted workers at the companies in Bezos’s empire.
Last week, a guerrilla activist group placed bottles of fake urine inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over the weekend, the group projected video interviews with Amazon workers and slogans on buildings near Bezos’s penthouse, including: “If You Can Buy the Met Gala, You Can Pay More Taxes.”
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
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