Hold onto your hats, folks—New York City’s new Mayor Zohran Mamdani just kicked off his term with a sartorial splash that’s raising eyebrows for all the wrong reasons.
For his inauguration, Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, turned to none other than Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, a former Vogue editor whose controversial past is stealing the spotlight from the couple’s big day, as the New York Post reports.
Let’s rewind to the ceremony itself, where Mamdani donned a handwoven silk tie crafted by New Delhi-based designer Kartik Kumra, a choice that aimed for elegance but got tangled in the stylist’s baggage.
Duwaji, meanwhile, sported a rented vintage Balenciaga coat, $630 leather boots borrowed from Miista, and earrings on loan from New York Vintage for the swearing-in, showing a mix of high-end and thrifty flair.
For the public event outside City Hall on Thursday, she switched to a full-length coat by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej, a nod to heritage that’s hard to ignore given the stylist’s history.
Karefa-Johnson herself gushed over the looks, calling Mamdani’s style “honest” and “real,” but one wonders if her definition of “regal in the punkest way” includes stirring up political hornets’ nests.
After all, Karefa-Johnson isn’t just any fashion guru—she’s the former Vogue contributing editor-at-large who stepped down in 2023 after making inflammatory remarks about Israel following the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas attack that left at least 1,300 dead and around 200 taken hostage.
Her social media posts at the time labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and accused it of “genocide,” even calling the Israeli Defense Forces a “terrorist organization”—hardly the neutral backdrop you’d want for a mayor’s fresh start.
She didn’t stop there, lamenting on Instagram, “I cannot believe that the world is watching in silence as a GENOCIDE — a mass Palestinian extinction plan — is happening before our very eyes."
These words, posted in the wake of unspeakable tragedy, led to her quietly scrubbing her Vogue title from her bio before resigning, a move that speaks volumes about the fallout from her rhetoric.
Fast forward to September 2025, and Karefa-Johnson doubled down on Threads, claiming that working in environments where “vitriolic white supremacy goes unchecked” was “untenable,” painting a picture of ideological strife that’s tough to reconcile with a unifying civic moment.
Back to the inauguration outfits—Mamdani, per Karefa-Johnson, usually sticks to suits from Suit Supply and rotates just two pairs of boots, a no-frills approach that clashes with the drama surrounding his stylist pick.
Contrast this with the couple’s previous collaboration with Bailey Moon, a stylist who’s worked with heavyweights like the Bidens and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and you’ve got to ask: Why court controversy with Karefa-Johnson?
Her past also includes a 2022 public spat with Kanye West over his “White Lives Matter” shirt, and while she made history as the first Black woman to style a Vogue cover in 2021, her political outbursts seem to overshadow any professional milestones.
At the end of the day, a mayor’s inauguration should celebrate a new chapter for the city, not serve as a runway for divisive figures whose baggage distracts from the real work ahead—let’s hope Mamdani’s administration focuses on policy over fashion faux pas.