Fashion Is Political: Zohran Mamdani's Custom Carhartt Jacket

If you’ve been following New York City news lately, you might have noticed that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has a new work uniform. He has appeared in a series of official-looking jackets: first, a green zip-up from the Department of Sanitation at the salt shed; then, an “Emergency Management” jacket while addressing school students about a snow day; and finally, a strikingly personalized black Carhartt jacket, embroidered with “The City of New York” and “Mayor.” It’s that last piece, a custom Carhartt that has people talking, debating, and dissecting.

But let us be clear about what this jacket is and isn’t. The headlines calling it “custom Carhartt” is a bit misleading.

Carharrt didn’t make Zohran a jacket, Mamdani simply bought a stock, American-made Carhartt “Full Swing Steel” jacket, a durable, water-resistant workwear staple bought from Dave’s, a family-run workwear shop in Chelsea that’s been around since 1963.

He then took it to Rocco Arena of Bushwick’s Arena Embroidery, who, with just a week’s notice, transformed it with custom stitching. The jackets has since become official government workwear while looking authentically personal.

zohran mamdani’s carhart fits go hard

The choice of Carhartt is itself a powerful statement when for generations, the brand has been synonymous with hard work, durability, and “Made in the USA” ethos. It speaks to a shift to practical clothing that the working class wear. In recent years, it’s also been adopted as an aesthetic by fashion-conscious young people, a fact that has led to critiques of him doing “cosplay”, as they see Zohran as a college-educated millennial appropriating working-class credibility.

But it seems like Mamdani’s use of the jacket isn’t a vague aesthetic prop; he’s deliberately customized a functional workwear item to represent his actual job. The subtle, curated details, such as the vintage-inspired “City of New York” wordmark on the chest, the single bold “Mayor” on the bicep, has resonated more deeply than a flashy suit or an explicit status marker ever could. It has also even spoken to an interest in caring for durable, locally-made work wear, a rejection of both fast fashion and overly elaborate, expensive fits.

The Hidden Message: "No Problem Too Big. No Task Too Small

The most striking detail has actually been hidden from public view, stitched inside the corduroy collar: “No problem too big. No task too small.” This line, a quote from Mamdani’s inauguration speech, seems to speak to the meaning of the jacket. Especially when it was worn to a press conference urging caution during a snowstorm, and then, famously, while actually shoveling snow in Brooklyn neighborhoods later that same day.

We can hope…. hope that is a new and refreshing ethos in politics: treating public office as a service job. And that the jacket alludes to a noble character and his care for the daily realities of his constituents. As one observer noted online, “It’s been a long time since I've heard of any mayor treating the job as the SERVICE job it is.” In a landscape often dominated by boomers in stiff suits, projecting formality and distance, Mamdani’s practical, cool, and engaged style signals a desired perceptual and tangible shift for social change, no matter hoe small it starts out. Another person joked, “We’ve been settling for boomers for too long that we forgot mayors were supposed to be cool.”

Fashion is Political (And That’s Okay)

Yet, some may ask, “Why is a jacket news?” But that’s precisely the point. Everyone wears clothes. Everyone makes choices about what they put on their body. For a politician, those choices are amplified, setting the tone for their administration and communicating values without saying a word. The obsession and fanfare of these embroidered work jackets are a mirror of people yearning, an ache for someone to finally signal solidarity and roll up one’s sleeves to get their hands dirty.

Mamdani’s Carhartt jackets allude to work competence while even speaking to local Americana values. To think we adore a man for simply supporting local businesses, buying the jacket from a 60-year-old NYC store and having it embellished by a Brooklyn-based embroiderer. It is strategically perfect, targeting a timeless, American workwear narrative with a modern, inclusive vision of New York City. It’s tough, fashionable, and functional. It feels real.

Ultimately, the jacket is more than a piece of clothing, but a piece of political communication. It tells a story of a mayor who sees his role as hands-on, who values substance and service over showmanship, and who understands that in a city like New York, the symbols you wear can be as powerful as the policies you pass. It’s a reminder that in politics, style is never just style, it’s part of the story you’re telling about who you are and who you work for. And in this case, the story is one of getting things done, one NY neighborhood at a time.