On January 1, outside New York City Hall, Zohran Mamdani, the city’s new mayor and first Muslim to hold the position, took his oath of office on a copy of the Quran. Beside him, his wife, illustrator Rama Duwaji, 28, appeared in a long brown coat with a funnel collar and a flared, faux fur-trimmed hem. Deliberately understated, the outfit nonetheless reflected a clear political commitment. The coat, from Beirut-based label Renaissance Renaissance, was created by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej, whose aesthetic is rooted in reflections on identity, heritage and cultural resistance.
Behind this symbolic and aesthetic choice is a signature: that of American stylist and fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson. “It’s a new way to approach political dressing,” she explained. The process was collaborative: “We worked together on everything. Rama Duwaji’s taste is inherently exquisite and she knows what she wants.”
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