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We imagine there are quite a few perks associated with being mayor of New York City. For Eric Adams, it was alleged unsanctioned luxury trips to Turkey. For current top dog Zohran Mamdani, it appears to be an arsenal of very sick jackets. This came in handy over the weekend, when the northeast was hit by a massive snowstorm—the first weather emergency Mamdani has had to face since taking office on New Year’s Day (in a Kartik Research tie, by the way).
In the lead up to the storm, Mamdani was seen at various press conferences wearing conspicuously embroidered outerwear for various New York City agencies. There was the green techy “Department of Sanitation” jacket he wore when he announced the city’s preparations for the incoming onslaught of snow, wind, and freezing cold weather during a Saturday press conference at the Spring Street Salt Shed. Then there was the “Emergency Management” jacket he donned when he told New York City public-school students that a Monday snow day would simply mean they’d have to attend virtual classes—a tough decree he tempered by saying they were allowed to pelt him with a snowball if they saw him on the street. And on Sunday, during another press conference amid the downfall of snow, Mamdani advised New Yorkers to stay indoors (and to borrow the Heated Rivalry novel from their local library) while wearing an extremely GQ garment: a personalized Carhartt jacket.
Featuring a curlicued midcentury “The City of New York” logo on the chest and “Mayor” in bold across the left bicep, the jacket was custom-embellished by the Bushwick, Brooklyn-based company Arena Embroidery. (The type and logo were designed by Noah Neary, senior advisor to First Lady of New York City Rama Duwaji.) Rocco Arena, who founded his brand in 2018 after a stint at Nike making one-off garments for special clients, tells GQ that he connected with Mamdani’s office via a mutual friend and learned about an opportunity to craft an embroidered jacket. The caveat? He only had a week.
Arena, who’s currently in California to finish setting up an outpost of his brand in Los Angeles, says it was a “team effort” for his crew in New York to pull off the embroidery job in time. The mayor’s office had full creative control over the jacket, including an ask to add a quote to the inside of its corduroy collar: “No problem too big. No task too small,” a riff on a line from his victory speech and a sentiment he has uttered in other public settings, including his appearance on The View. Later that day, Mamdani wore the jacket outside while he shoveled snow in various neighborhoods.
And if you’re wondering why the mayor’s office would go through the trouble to secure splashy new outerwear for Hizzoner to wear during a January blizzard, it’s because there’s some precedent for extreme weather begetting high-visibility political events. Snowstorms have long been an aptitude test for New York City mayors, and this particular one put Mamdani’s capacity for dealing with big problems to the test. John Lindsay’s political career ended after the blizzard of 1969, in which 42 people died and hundreds of others were injured; in 2014, Bill de Blasio refused to grant a snow day, forcing parents and children to trek though treacherous wintery terrain to get to school. Mamdani, on the other hand, was widely praised for how effectively he handled the storm. He owned the narrative, too: To cap off his snowstorm-adjacent press duties, Mamdani made a surprise appearance during Monday’s episode of The Tonight Show, where the mayor closed the loop on host Jimmy Fallon’s months-long joke about it being cold outside.
And Mamdani isn’t the only Democratic politician to deploy hearty workwear in times of crisis—or when they want to connect with their constituents—in recent years: Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman made Carhartt hoodies his uniform of choice, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz mixed his Carhartt with camo during his vice-presidential run.
The exact model the mayor wore was the brand’s “Full Swing Steel” canvas jacket in black, which had been sourced from Dave’s New York, a workwear and uniform shop that’s been open in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood since 1963. Its water-resistant shell and storm flap made it an appropriate choice of outerwear for a snowstorm, though we’re surprised the mayor didn’t take advantage of his jacket’s detachable hood, because as many New Yorkers pointed out to the mayor this weekend: Where was his hat?!
And as far as future jacket-embroidering goes, Arena—who has also embellished pieces for A-list stars like Drake and Billie Eilish—hopes that the mayor’s office won’t lose his business card any time soon.
“I definitely have a meeting or phone call ahead of me to discuss new, exciting stuff,” Arena says. “We would love to be, you know, his guy.”
This story has been updated. Savannah Sobrevilla contributed reporting.