When Eric Adams walked into a room of designers, editors and models on Thursday night, he had a wealth of material to work with as he set the stage for the upcoming New York Fashion Week. The self-described nightlife mayor has, in the nine months since taking office, put his after-hours pursuits at the center of his narrative of what the city should be – a civic brand ambassador. It’s a work-life balance approach familiar to many in the fashion world, with its role as a cultural and economic driver, especially around September. As he delivered his remarks at the cocktail party he’s hosting to kick off the week ahead, Adams pulled back from some of his trademarks.
“New York is as cool as it gets right now,” Adams told the crowd, “at Gracie Mansion with this room full of rowdy people.”
The audience at the event, accompanied to the official residence of the mayor with the chief content officer of Condé Nast and Vogue global editorial director Anna Wintour and CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America Steven Kolb, offered a politely enthusiastic laugh. In this corner of the city, where Tommy Hilfiger AND Thom Browne was gathered with Emily Ratajkowski AND Tara Subkoff, Adams’ call for charisma and atmosphere seemed to be well received.
The wider reaction has not always been so uniform. As his administration has progressed, the list of Adams sightings in the city, now a regular tabloid and social media target, has steadily grown: with French Montana, with Cara Delevingne, more different Real Housewives the players, with D’Amelio sisters, or otherwise in Los Angeles with Paris Hilton, Kate Hudson, Rich Paul, AND Casey Affleck. The Zero Bond private social club, which opened in 2020, has dovetailed with the mayor’s regular visits there. Adams named its founder Scott Sartiano aboard the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Adams’ nightlife has landed, ultimately, somewhere between meme and legitimate political issue. New York Times recently ran a front-page story that focused on the mechanics and finances of Adams’ regular evenings at the restaurant Osteria La Baia, which is run by two friends, the brothers Robert AND Jean Petrosyants, who pleaded guilty to felony charges in 2014 after federal prosecutors accused him of money laundering. (A mayoral spokesman told the paper that Adams conducts business and personal meetings at the restaurant and that he personally pays his card there each month.) That report came months after a commonly cited Spectrum News/Siena College poll this summer showed that, amid a host of pandemic recovery issues, 56% of residents said their city is headed in the wrong direction.
During a brief interview before his speech Thursday, Adams said in the Gracie Mansion dining room that he wasn’t feeling any heat. “I won’t listen to the noise,” he insisted. “I know I have to focus on the whole city. People miss that at 11:00 p.m., when I leave that institution, I will go to the subway system.”
“No one can ever complain that Eric isn’t up at 5 in the morning to push forward with the city,” the mayor continued. “You have to say to yourself, ‘I know this guy has a chip because he can’t do this.’
When it came to matters of fashion — he arrived at the Met Gala in May in a tuxedo that read “End Gun Violence” on the back — Adams struck a softer tone. “I like to believe I’m a throwback from the ’50s,” he said with a smile. “The way you look really does handle your mood. A lot of people don’t believe that.”
After his words, Adams spoke with him Tory Burch. Ratajkowski formed a circle across the room with the designers Connor McKnight AND Batsheva Hay. More than a handful of attendees had been to Bill de BlasioFashion Week 2014 kick-off party and there’s precedent for the mayoral-fashion alliance. Tall Michael BloombergThe short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, Diane von Furstenberg described him to me as “an exceptional executive who really knows how to solve problems, who would surround himself well.” But an added boost could be especially welcome as the fashion industry continues to navigate its own pandemic-related retail setbacks.
In his words introducing Adams, creative director of Carolina Herrera Wes Gordon recalled growing up in Atlanta thinking of New York fashion as “Seventh Avenue, Barneys, Bergdorf’s, vogue, Saks, Bryant Park, a cinematic version of my fashion dreams. There were obstacles, he said, but they were the old ones: “We all know that this is an industry full of challenges. But thanks to programs like this and the work of the CFDA, young designers are reminded that they’re not in it alone.” Gordon noted how meaningful the support of Wintour and von Furstenberg, standing a few feet away, had been.
When Adams took the podium a few minutes later, he broke into a reflection on what he saw as the power of fashion. “You see your business only as fashion,” he said. “I see something else. I see that wedding dress you designed as that person begins his/her life. I see that tie, when someone goes into an interview, that because you designed it so precisely, they were able to nail it and feel good about themselves. I see it when we go to women who are victims of domestic violence and we get them… so they can have clothes to wear themselves—when we go to a homeless shelter where the young people didn’t have clothes to make out of day by day. days, embarrassed to go to school because they had not changed their clothes, that some of you donate and pay for the items.”
As he picked up steam, he returned to a more cheerful manner. “You grace Gracie Mansion with your presence,” he told the crowd.
Attendees who recorded the speech on their phones gave a light round of boos. (“It was cute,” remarked one guest.)
“People thought the town was a 9-to-5 town, it was just a jersey town,” Adams continued. “Then suddenly January of 2022 comes and a mayor comes and says he’s a nightlife mayor.” Changing times, he ended his speech with a promise: He would return to hold this event every year.
