When Mayor Eric Adams emerges from his official limousine, so too does a glimpse of poplin, chambray and gabardine: some of the New York City mayor’s collection of crisp shirts, tailored suits and custom neckties often travels with him, swinging from a rack in the back seat of his black Chevrolet Suburban.
Yet just what his closet contains has gone largely unexamined, even as critics have questioned how he maintains a collection of bespoke suits on a mayor’s salary, or grumbled that in dressing up, Mr. Adams plays celebrity, not civil servant.
“Seven times a day he changes his clothes,” the humorist Fran Lebowitz said on a podcast with Bill Maher. “He has his clothes made! The mayor doesn’t make enough money to buy those clothes. He’s been in public service his whole life, he shouldn’t be able to buy those clothes.”
But is this focus on Mr. Adams’s appearance just a gossipy pile-on? Is speculation about the source of his stylish wardrobe simply a rumor born out of terrible poll numbers and involvement in a federal probe about his campaign’s fund-raising? Or is it, as the mayor himself has suggested, nothing more than a racially coded attack? Either way, there is only so much one can learn from a mayor who has resisted any suggestion of transparency around things like who exactly pays for meals at his favorite nighttime haunts.
The mayor showed off his style at different events in the city. From left: At the opening of the restaurant Caviar Kaspia at The Mark Hotel in February at the start of last year’s New York Fashion Week; at last year’s U.S. Open; attending his first Met Gala in 2022 wearing a jacket by the Nigerian designer Laolu Senbanjo.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times, Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times, Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times
Supporters say the mayor embodies a stylish city stepping out of its pandemic sweatpants, a sartorial beacon embodying what he likes to call New York “swagger.” A New York Daily News editorial praised the mayor’s fashion sense as good for the recovering city: “We finally have a leader who dresses the way the city is starting to feel.”