Did You Notice Zohran Mamdani’s Kartik Research Tie?
That’s the kind of desi representation we live for
After a year of some of the most memorable political social media campaigns to land on our For You pages, Zohran Kwame Mamdani is officially the mayor of New York. For South Asians everywhere, it has been nothing short of a thrill. This is the politician who used Deewar references to break down policy for viewers online, casually played Dhoom Machale at his victory speech, and as of yesterday, had Bernie Sanders lightly vibing to Gaddi Red Challenger. Most of us spend a lifetime trying to be this self-assured in public. Mamdani does it on a random Thursday.
This is not the first time we have seen a person of Indian origin in American politics, but the thing that makes Mamdani’s acts of representing his heritage so earnest is that he carries a bit of his heritage with him even when it’s not loud enough to be recognised from two blocks away. Case in point: as the Times Square ball dropped to usher in the New Year, Zohran Mamdani took his oath in as the hundred and twelfth mayor of New York in a gold embroidered tie by Delhi-based label Kartik Research.
The dark grey herringbone tie was custom-made from eri silk, a fabric produced using cocoons native to the hills of North-east India. Delicately embroidered with four-petalled floral motifs in gold, it functioned as a subtle throughline between ceremony, celebration, and cultural memory.
The tie comes from Kartik Research, the Delhi-based luxury streetwear label founded by designer Kartik Kumra in 2021. By 2023, Kumra had already emerged as a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize. His Paris Men’s Fashion Week debut last July, however, firmly placed Kartik Research on the global menswear map. The collection, titled How To Make In India, unfolded on a Jaipur Rugs-lined runway and read as a confident embrace of Indian maximalism at a moment when fashion is still not over the concept of restraint and quiet luxury.
Since then, the label’s rise has been swift. Kumra has earned a place on the BOF 500 list and dressed a roster that spans Lewis Hamilton, Kendrick Lamar, and BTS’s V, all in his signature block prints and intricate embroidery. That Mamdani chose to wear Kartik Research at moments of civic visibility felt less like a styling flourish and more like a quiet alignment of values, craft, and contemporary South Asian identity.
For Mamdani’s inauguration ceremony, fashion editor and stylist Gabriela Karefa-Johnson styled both Mamdani and his wife, artist Rama Duwaji. While Mamdani wore a black velvet suit and a classic white shirt, Duwaji, already a fashion icon in her own right, wore an archival, asymmetrically cut Balenciaga wool coat with a dramatic funnel neckline, paired with wide, easy shorts and sharply pointed lace-up boots and statement gold jewellery.
For the public inauguration outside City Hall the next day, the couple once again worked with Karefa-Johnson. Mamdani stayed within the bounds of tailoring but swapped out his patterned tie for a deep burgundy silk number. Duwaji returned with a brown funnel-neck coat by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej’s Renaissance Renaissance, adapted from a recent collection and finished with plush faux-fur detailing along the edges. The look was grounded with another statement footwear choice: tall, lace-up boots in the same earthy tone, paired with oxidised silver hoops.
The message was clear: this is a couple that knows they are being watched, and they dress to practice the same earnestness that defines their politics and public life.