Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his spouse Rama Duwaji had been dressed for inauguration day by controversial superstar stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson — a former Vogue contributing editor-at-large who resigned after unleashing a virulent anti-Israel rant.
Karefa-Johnson, 34, wrote in a Substack submit that Hizzoner wore a “handwoven silk” tie made by the New Delhi–based mostly designer Kartik Kumra to his swearing-in ceremony whereas Duwaji sported $630 leather-based boots on mortgage from Miista together with a rented classic Balenciaga coat.
“This look is trustworthy. Actual. Regal within the punkest approach,” wrote Karefa-Johnson, including that the Massive Apple’s first girl additionally rocked rented earrings from New York Classic.
Karefa-Johnson, who resigned after a fiery conflict with the journal in 2023, added that the mayor’s look was extra, “let’s say… easy.”
“He wears fits from Go well with Provide and the identical two pairs of trainers. He’s bought work to do, and vogue isn’t precisely prime of thoughts,” she wrote. “However tea on the tie? That’s one thing particular.
“You see it within the loomwork, the embroidery, the weave itself. This tie displays the old-world craftsmanship,” she wrote.
The couple later modified garments for the general public inauguration ceremony exterior Metropolis Corridor Thursday afternoon, with Duwaji sporting a full-length coat made by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej, the stylist stated.
Karefa-Johnson sparked outrage when she went on a rant that in contrast Israel to an “apartheid state” committing “genocide” and likened the Israeli Protection Forces to a “terrorist group” in October 2023.
“I can not consider that the world is watching in silence as a GENOCIDE — a mass Palestinian extinction plan — is going on earlier than our very eyes,” she wrote on Instagram after the bombing of Gaza, following the Hamas assault on Israel.
“These are WAR CRIMES,” Karefa-Johnson added. “IDF is a torture company sponsored by the Israeli apartheid state.”
It got here after one other diatribe she posted on Oct. 8 — someday after Hamas terrorists massacred at the least 1,300 folks in Israel, and captured roughly 200 hostages.
“It’s so disappointing to see the utter lack of awareness of the essential tenets and ways of colonization, and one’s willingness to justify and defend these techniques which have solely ever oppressed,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Rattling. I hate when Instagram reveals me what I hope I by no means know in regards to the folks I comply with and their horrifying perception techniques.”
Karefa-Johnson — who in 2021 turned the primary black lady to fashion a Vogue cowl — then quietly wiped her job title from her Instagram account earlier than resigning later that month.
She later fumed that, “Working in a spot the place this type of vitriolic white supremacy goes unchecked is untenable”
“Survival in these areas is a violent and deeply damaging train and I wasn’t prepared to pay the value any longer,” she wrote on Threads in September 2025.
In 2022, Karefa-Johnson additionally made headlines for an internet beef with Kanye West over the rapper’s “White Lives Matter” T-shirt.
New York Metropolis’s first couple reportedly started working with Karefa-Johnson after beforehand utilizing stylist Bailey Moon on their election-day threads.
Moon’s checklist of star-studded purchasers has included the Bidens, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Pamela Anderson.
