Leave it to New Yorkers to make public safety look stylish. As the coronavirus pandemic stretches on into the summer, city dwellers are using face…
Leave it to New Yorkers to make public safety look stylish. As the coronavirus pandemic stretches on into the summer, city dwellers are using face coverings as a way to flaunt individual fashion sense.
And why not? Even Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, encouraged citizens to see their masks more like accessories. “Masks can be a fashion statement,” she said in a press conference last week.
Here, The Post takes to the streets to find out who’s playing hide-and-chic.
Whitney Garofalo, 23
The Fashion Institute of Technology grad said she was drawn to this fabric for its resemblance to the iconic Burberry print. But thanks to an industrious mask-sewing friend, she got the look without the luxury-label price. “I’m just trying to support someone who is trying to find a new hobby during quarantine,” she said.
Danielle Melendez, 24, with her cat, Peaches
“Mine’s pretty ironic,” said model and actress Melendez, of the floral mask she picked up at a dollar store while visiting her mother in Queens. “I’m allergic to flowers… I can’t smell or touch them.”
Shadi Jurdi, 31
Jurdi said that his growing collection of bold-print masks is a sign of his commitment to style. “All of my masks are a little bit expressive and have quirky prints or patterns,” he said, adding that he got this vintage cow print one from a friend’s secondhand shop, the Consistency Project. “I don’t get to dress up and go out like I used to,” said Jurdi, a senior editor at Etsy. “So that’s one way to be expressive during this weird time.”
Delaney, 21
A waitress from the East Village, Delaney, who declined to give her last name, bought her witchy mask from an Etsy store called Make America Goth Again, which she discovered while mindlessly surfing the web during quarantine. “Self-expression has always been very important to me,” she said.
