In Rama Duwaji’s New York, everyone is entitled to a little glamour
By Rachel Tashjian, CNN
(CNN) — On a frigid New Year’s Day, New York’s new democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani was sworn in, with his wife, Rama Duwaji, alongside him, grabbing attention for her romantic brown frock coat, trimmed at the hem and cuffs with chocolate faux fur.
For political wives, the inauguration coat is an agenda-setter – the first statement on how someone who may or may not have aspired to be a public symbol will navigate the always-tricky, often exasperating act of using clothes to elucidate or complement her husband’s administration.
In 2009, Michelle Obama wore a chartreuse coat and matching dress by the Cuban-American designer Isabel Toledo – hardly a household name like first lady go-tos Oscar de la Renta or Ralph Lauren, and a signal that Obama would direct the inevitable attention on her wardrobe to smaller-scale American designers, often people of color and small business owners. In 2017, Melania Trump chose a powder blue cashmere Ralph Lauren sheath with a 1960s feel, perhaps a gesture of unity through a bit of Kennedy-esque glamour.
At Donald Trump’s second inauguration, her assertively tailored Adam Lippes coat and wide-brimmed Eric Javits hat told the world that this time, the first lady would attempt no such soft power – and the hat, casting a shadow over much of her face, became an enduring symbol of her evasiveness and the Trump administration’s constant obfuscation.
Duwaji is a mayor’s wife, not a president’s, but her husband’s victory has drawn international attention. At first blush, Duwaji’s outerwear suggested a by-the-book sartorial diplomacy: the coat was a custom version of a runway look – which Duwaji ordered and paid for, per an administration spokesperson – by the Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej of Renaissance Renaissance. As Duwaji’s stylist, former Vogue contributing editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, explained in a Substack post, “On her first official day as First Lady of New York, Rama is wearing a small, independent woman designer from the Middle East. That representation resonates. It reverberates.”
That sort of biographical dressing is typical for women in the eye of politics: wear a garment that speaks to the historic nature of your place in government. (The public expects Democrats in particular to play this game: Kamala Harris, though she was an elected official rather than a first lady, was often criticized by fashion editors for wearing too few female designers, or for choosing the French brand Chloe over American options.) Mamdani, too, spoke to his heritage by wearing a tie by the South Asian designer Kartik Kumra, of Kartik Research, at an earlier swearing-in ceremony shortly after midnight.
For that event, Duwaji wore a vintage Balenciaga coat – rented from a fashion archive, Karefa-Johnson wrote, and a nod to her love of secondhand clothes – and a pair of boots by the British label Miista. A regular sighting on New York City subway lines, Miista boots are beloved by young women who like the freaky fabulousness but not the price point of Prada or Balenciaga. You can get a pair secondhand on Depop or The Real Real for about $200. Here, she seemed to say, she’s just a regular, young New York woman, with a love for vintage and low-practical, low-heeled shoes.
Despite that market positioning, The New York Post seized on the boots, which retail for $630, as a sign of hypocrisy. How can Mamdani, who campaigned on a platform of affordability, tell New Yorkers he relates to their financial struggles when his wife appears by his side in $630 footwear? (Karefa-Johnson noted in her post a few hours later that the boots were borrowed.)
Given Mamdani’s image-savviness, and Duwaji’s pre-inauguration fashion plays, the boot episode seems more like a deftly set trap for their critics than a misstep. In late December, Duwaji posed for a digital cover of New York Magazine in boldly stylized images by photographer Szilveszter Makó – not the carefully constructed, soft news photos one expects of a political wife, but whimsically elegant pictures that recalled the mannered kineticism of fashion photographer Irving Penn. “I love fashion, and I love being creative and putting things together and styling things,” Duwaji said in the profile.
Mamdani and Duwaji are clearly aware of the potential criticisms, and are willing to give it a go anyway: The fashion credits accompanying Duwaji’s New York story noted that the pieces were “on loan” – which is standard practice in fashion magazine-making, but was likely emphasized to fend off any anger over the first lady posing in an $1850 Jacquemus jacket (the prices were also omitted from the credits).
She also made a daring switch-up with her stylist. While Mamdani and Duwaji worked with Jill Biden’s former stylist, Bailey Moon, for their victory party ensembles in November, on Thursday they turned to Karefa-Johnson (notably, a onetime colleague of Mamdani senior advisor Zara Rahim, who had brokered the connection, Karefa-Johnson wrote Substack). Known for her outspokenness about the failures of the fashion industry and about the Israel–Hamas war, Karefa-Johnson is at once a fashion insider, who attends fashion weeks in Milan and Paris, and a frequent critic. She walks the sort of tightrope that Duwaji may need to walk.
Asked about the decision to work with Karefa-Johnson, a Mamdani spokesperson said, “What distinguishes her is her moral clarity. She rejects the idea that fashion should be neutral, hollow, or detached from the world it moves through. Her work insists that clothing carries values, history, and culture, and rejects the comfort of sitting out.”
Laying out her approach to dressing Duwaji, Karefa-Johnson wrote that their conversations were “all in service of subtly subverting expectations of how a First Lady can—or ‘should’—present. And I think we finally found the answer: However the f*ck she wants to.” This is not a woman walking on eggshells to avoid critique.
The fact is that many Americans see fashion, and even clothing itself, as an inexcusable indulgence. After Mamdani’s fellow democratic socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wore a rented Brother Vellies dress reading “Tax the Rich” to the Met Gala, the House Ethics Committee investigated and concluded she had underpaid for the rental. It was George Santos’s spending at Ferragamo and Hermes that finally helped get him pushed out of office; the loudest criticisms of Melania Trump have tended to come in response to her clothing, like a Zara jacket with an unfortunate slogan or a pith helmet donned on a trip to Africa.
During the second Trump administration, Melania Trump has largely escaped criticism for her clothing because her current look conforms so closely to how most Americans believe a rich person should or does dress: Birkin bags, sequin gowns, Dior couture pencil skirt suits. In the public mind, rich women look like models, and dress like quiet luxury Barbie. If you’re going to wear fancy clothing, it better go down easily with your reputation: Eric Adams, sitting right in the second row flanking Mamdani and Duwaji, had a conspicuously Fendi-logoed scarf wrapped around his neck, but who cares? His vision of improving New York always included a few fringe benefits for himself.
Duwaji, though, comes from a different generation, and with that, a different political mindset. For many younger people, especially Gen Z, considerations about how a garment or pair of shoes is made, and by whom, are part of the purchasing equation. There is an understanding that boots made in a way that meets one’s ethical standards – for fair wages, with sustainable materials – probably do cost $630. (Miista’s website includes a lengthy primer on its supply chain.) As shallow as paying attention to her clothes may seem, Duwaji’s thinking likely reflects the broader sensibilities of her generation. She and her husband lived in a rent stabilized apartment before their move this week to Gracie Mansion – so why wouldn’t she have some disposable income set aside for cool clothes?
The Mamdani administration seems to be presenting another point of view on clothes than previous politicians, whether on the right or left, have done. It will be challenging to communicate to an America, and even a city, skeptical of the value of good clothes. As defenders on every side of the political spectrum have pointed out when first ladies or political figures wear something expensive – well, shouldn’t they? Wouldn’t most Americans spend a little extra for a dress to wear to a loved one’s wedding, or a graduation ceremony, or, if possible, borrow something? If prices for basic necessities – rent, groceries, childcare – are not outrageous, the Mamdani school of thought seems to be, you can afford nice things once in a while.
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