It’s been a summer of dreams. Whether you’ve been living in the New York City area or witnessing it through a screen, the consensus is that the Big Apple is on an otherworldly, jovial, and utopian level—one the rest of the country cannot fully fathom. With a mayor who rides around on his bicycle (now, with a helmet) waving at passersby, while fixing every abandoned park and deepened pothole throughout the five boroughs, New York City has been labeled the place to be right now. And this is largely credited to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who assumed office on January 1, 2026.
Across my timeline, I saw a slew of posts claiming, “if you weren’t in NYC this summer, you missed out.” And as the resident New York City skeptic, who has lived here five years now, I have to agree: this was the summer of all summers. From the structural issues Mayor Mamdani has resolved in a timely manner, to the New York Knicks taking home their first NBA championship in 56 years, to weekends on end watching the World Cup take over MetLife Stadium, it’s been a summer filled with hope (and everlasting memories). This has turned into a cheeky, daring-to-be-positive belief that if you call on the mayor, he might actually fix your problem. So, with that being said, Mayor Mamdani, can you fix New York Fashion Week?
If anyone has the ability, charisma, and social caché to do it, it feels like it’s Mamdani.
I don’t subscribe to political glazing, but, it’s a long-standing problem, and so far, attempts to change it haven’t had an impact. Now that summer is slipping through our fingers, and we’re lining up invites for the Spring/Summer 2027 season, the same conversations that typically pop up around this time are reappearing across my timeline: Is NYFW boring? Irrelevant? Why is does it seem less interesting than Milan and Paris? Can anyone turn this ship around? Well, if anyone has the ability, charisma, and social caché to do it, it feels like it’s Mamdani.
Side note: The city’s NYFW problem isn’t helped by the fact that “fashion’s biggest night,” held at the Met Museum is going through its own ordeal, given the sudden withdrawal of John Galliano from his planned retrospective exhibition due to the designer’s anti-semitic and racist history. The New York fashion scene is in a conflicted era, one figuring out its place within the old and new guard, which has lead to unavoidable uncertainty.
This collective conversation around a potential death of NYFW is always flanked by mentions of the good old days. As a Gen Zer, I can’t go to a show or two without hearing about the early 2000s Bryant Park tents, and NYFW’s more glamorous, more time-efficient past. Back in that heyday, the celebrity, mystique, and industry centrality was much stronger. And, the focus on fashion was more important than social media and “being seen.”
For the uninitiated, New York Fashion Week spans across multiple boroughs in circuitous locations across the city that make it seem like each designer is conspiring against the other to ensure you cannot attend every runway show. Add in the struggles of public transportation and overflowing car traffic, plus the added NYC influencer rat race of it all, the decline in overall perception and actual desirability is constantly on people’s tongues. The A-listers are more likely to sit front row at Paris and Milan’s version later in the month. It’s become increasingly rare, and rather difficult, to get big names to New York. (This is, of course, outside of enduring names like Ralph Lauren and Carolina Herrera, who do draw celebs in, brands like Coach, whose front row always seems to have the latest Gen Z star, or, hot newer talent like Luar, who, lest we forget, got Beyoncé, Miss Tina Knowles, and Solange to sit front row back in February of 2024.)
The young and rising designer talent in New York is too laudable for it to be clouded with sentiments that the fashion scene there is dead.
With New York riding on a generational high right now, it makes me wonder if there could be a placebo effect on the vibes of NYFW this year. Already, we do have the auspicious return of Conner Ives and Thom Browne! Can Mamdani’s New York (colloquially dubbed by the internet as Mamdanistan) offer a better collective feeling to the typical week’s events—whether it be through the current fixes to public transportation, the overall happier New Yorkers, or a secret third option? And, could we even get a potential Rama Duwaji spotting, given her ties to the fashion space? It all feels too possible to ignore.
If you’re taking requests, Mayor Mamdani, we’d love to see your favored hand touch the hem of NYFW’s sleeve. Whisper to the higher powers above about that Bryant Park return, centralizing all shows and equalizing the sartorial gauntlet that currently exists. If not this season, then next—but I think it needs to happen soon (please). Let the spellbinding allure of this city bleed into fashion week, Mister Mayor. The young and rising designer talent in New York is too laudable for it to be clouded with sentiments that the fashion scene there is dead.
Aiyana Ishmael is the style editor at Cosmopolitan magazine. In her work, Aiyana focuses on the culture of fashion and how it intertwines and shapes the zeitgeist. She is an award-winning journalist from Miami, Florida, and a graduate of the historically Black university, Florida A&M. She is a 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30: Media honoree, and her debut romance novella PASSING GAME is set to release March of 2027 (831 Stories/Simon & Schuster).