Rama Duwaji, the next first lady of New York City, stepped into the spotlight at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater Tuesday night for her husband’s electoral party — in an all-black outfit.
While it may have looked discreet, fit for a woman who was a seemingly reluctant campaigner, refusing interviews and rarely stumping for her husband, the details suggested she had actually spent a fair amount of time considering her new role, and what happened next. She is an artist, after all. She understands the craft of image-making, and just how much visuals matter.
Especially when you are, at 28, the youngest first lady New York City has ever had, only the second first lady the city has had since 2001, the first Gen Z first lady and the first Muslim first lady, an unprecedented mix of … well, precedents. And you have to represent your own community, artistic and otherwise, as well as the whole city.
Ms. Duwaji has to embody both a revolution and continuity, the upstarts and the establishment. Like her husband, whose allegiance to suits and ties even when surrounded by his own suit-and-tie-rejecting generational cohort reflects the imperative to embody the change he says the city needs while offering institutional reassurance, Ms. Duwaji must be both of her generation and beyond it.
What it means to dress that part requires no small amount of calculation. As Ms. Duwaji must have been aware. At least judging by her outfit.
Which spoke not only of her identity, but of that of the city itself.
Rather than opt for a classic suit, or the hipster knee-high boots she wore to her wedding and to sit front row at the Diotima show during New York Fashion Week in September, Ms. Duwaji mixed and matched on Tuesday night, creating a melting pot of a look. She avoided big brands in favor of independent entrepreneurs, dressing up just enough to situate herself in the middle ground between socialism and high society. Her clothes said she was neither one cliché nor the other; she was herself.
To be specific, she wore a black top from Zeid Hijazi, a Palestinian designer based in London whose work combines heritage embroidery and futuristic techniques and has appeared in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sleeveless, denim — denim! — and laser-etched with what seemed to be classic tatreez motifs, the top was a little personal (Ms. Duwaji has wrestled with Palestinian trauma in her work), a little downtown, a little Audrey Hepburn.
With it, Ms. Duwaji wore a flowy mid-calf black velvet-and-lace skirt from the New York-based designer Ulla Johnson, part of the Fashion Week establishment, whose work is popular with the boho deluxe yoga mom set, and who recently opened a new boutique on the Upper East Side. Also, long silver spike earrings from Eddie Borgo, another New York designer, though one who decamped to Los Angeles a few years ago only to return to New York in May and put down roots in TriBeCa.
Ms. Duwaji looked as if she could host a soiree at Gracie Mansion without betraying her brand values. Or her husband’s. That’s also a win.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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