{"id":220140,"date":"2026-05-05T01:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/220140\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T01:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:55:07","slug":"mayor-mamdani-highlights-fashion-workers-as-he-skips-met-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/220140\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Mamdani Highlights Fashion Workers as He Skips Met Gala"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, New York\u2019s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, made clear that he had no desire to cozy up with Kardashians and Bezoses when he said he would skip<\/a> this year\u2019s Met Gala, the marquee event of the city\u2019s increasingly celebrity-filled social calendar.<\/p>\n

Yet, on Monday, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, went further in aligning himself with the city\u2019s working class by releasing a photo portfolio<\/a> highlighting six behind-the-scenes workers that fuel the city\u2019s fashion industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fashion industry is made possible by the thousands of workers behind the scenes \u2014 seamstresses, tailors, retail workers, delivery drivers \u2014 whose immense talent and dedication deserves to be celebrated,\u201d the mayor said in a statement emailed to The New York Times. \u201cWe\u2019re proud to feature the stories of these hard-working New Yorkers who make our city\u2019s fashion industry second to none.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani is not the first mayor to skip the gala. Eric Adams attended only once, as did Bill de Blasio. Michael Bloomberg didn\u2019t attend every year.<\/p>\n

The shoot, which the mayor\u2019s 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\u2019s employee for nearly four decades. <\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The portfolio was published hours before a Met Gala that has stoked class tensions, particularly over Bezos\u2019s central role.<\/a> On Monday morning in New York, labor unions from across the country staged the Ball Without Billionaires<\/a>, an event that highlighted workers at the companies in Bezos\u2019s empire.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s penthouse, including: \u201cIf You Can Buy the Met Gala, You Can Pay More Taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, New York\u2019s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, made clear that he had no desire to cozy up with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1909,31317,86686,1445,9,24,55,54,56,1446],"class_list":["post-220140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-amazon-com-inc","tag-fashion-and-apparel","tag-i-d-magazine","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-zohran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}