Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji were dressed for inauguration day by controversial celebrity 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 post that Hizzoner wore a “handwoven silk” tie made by the New Delhi–based designer Kartik Kumra to his swearing-in ceremony while Duwaji sported $630 leather boots on loan from Miista along with a rented vintage Balenciaga coat.
“This look is honest. Real. Regal in the punkest way,” wrote Karefa-Johnson, adding that the Big Apple’s first lady also rocked rented earrings from New York Vintage.
Karefa-Johnson, who resigned after a fiery clash with the magazine in 2023, added that the mayor’s look was more, “shall we say… simple.”
“He wears suits from Suit Supply and the same two pairs of boots. He’s got work to do, and fashion isn’t exactly top of mind,” she wrote. “But tea on the tie? That’s something special.
“You see it in the loomwork, the embroidery, the weave itself. This tie reflects the old-world craftsmanship,” she wrote.
The couple later changed clothes for the public inauguration ceremonyoutside City Hall Thursday afternoon, with Duwaji sporting a full-length coat made by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej, the stylist said.
Karefa-Johnson sparked outrage when she went on a rant that compared Israel to an “apartheid state” committing “genocide” and likened the Israeli Defense Forces to a “terrorist organization” in October 2023.
“I cannot believe that the world is watching in silence as a GENOCIDE — a mass Palestinian extinction plan — is happening before our very eyes,” she wrote on Instagram after the bombing of Gaza, following the Hamas attack on Israel.
“These are WAR CRIMES,” Karefa-Johnson added. “IDF is a torture agency sponsored by the Israeli apartheid state.”
It came after another diatribe she posted on Oct. 8 — one day after Hamas terrorists massacred at least 1,300 people in Israel, and captured roughly 200 hostages.
“It’s so disappointing to see the utter lack of understanding of the basic tenets and tactics of colonization, and one’s willingness to justify and defend those systems which have only ever oppressed,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Damn. I hate when Instagram shows me what I hope I never know about the people I follow and their horrifying belief systems.”
Karefa-Johnson — who in 2021 became the first black woman to style a Vogue cover — then quietly wiped her job title from her Instagram account before resigning later that month.
She later fumed that, “Working in a place where this kind of vitriolic white supremacy goes unchecked is untenable”
“Survival in these spaces is a violent and deeply damaging exercise and I wasn’t willing to pay the price any longer,” she wrote on Threads in September 2025.
In 2022, Karefa-Johnson also made headlines for an online beef with Kanye West over the rapper’s “White Lives Matter” T-shirt.
New York City’s first couple reportedly began working with Karefa-Johnson after previously using stylist Bailey Moon on their election-day threads.
Moon’s list of star-studded clients has included the Bidens, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Pamela Anderson.
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