By Rachel Tashjian, CNN
(CNN) — On a frigid New Year’s Day, New York’s new democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani was sworn in, with his wife, Rama Duwaji, alongside him, grabbing attention for her romantic brown frock coat, trimmed at the hem and cuffs with chocolate faux fur.
For political wives, the inauguration coat is an agenda-setter – the first statement on how someone who may or may not have aspired to be a public symbol will navigate the always-tricky, often exasperating act of using clothes to elucidate or complement her husband’s administration.
In 2009, Michelle Obama wore a chartreuse coat and matching dress by the Cuban-American designer Isabel Toledo – hardly a household name like first lady go-tos Oscar de la Renta or Ralph Lauren, and a signal that Obama would direct the inevitable attention on her wardrobe to smaller-scale American designers, often people of color and small business owners. In 2017, Melania Trump chose a powder blue cashmere Ralph Lauren sheath with a 1960s feel, perhaps a gesture of unity through a bit of Kennedy-esque glamour.
At Donald Trump’s second inauguration, her assertively tailored Adam Lippes coat and wide-brimmed Eric Javits hat told the world that this time, the first lady would attempt no such soft power – and the hat, casting a shadow over much of her face, became an enduring symbol of her evasiveness and the Trump administration’s constant obfuscation.
Duwaji is a mayor’s wife, not a president’s, but her husband’s victory has drawn international attention. At first blush, Duwaji’s outerwear suggested a by-the-book sartorial diplomacy: the coat was a custom version of a runway look – which Duwaji ordered and paid for, per an administration spokesperson – by the Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej of Renaissance Renaissance. As Duwaji’s stylist, former Vogue contributing editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, explained in a Substack post, “On her first official day as First Lady of New York, Rama is wearing a small, independent woman designer from the Middle East. That representation resonates. It reverberates.”
That sort of biographical dressing is typical for women in the eye of politics: wear a garment that speaks to the historic nature of your place in government. (The public expects Democrats in particular to play this game: Kamala Harris, though she was an elected official rather than a first lady, was often criticized by fashion editors for wearing too few female designers, or for choosing the French brand Chloe over American options.) Mamdani, too, spoke to his heritage by wearing a tie by the South Asian designer Kartik Kumra, of Kartik Research, at an earlier swearing-in ceremony shortly after midnight.
For that event, Duwaji wore a vintage Balenciaga coat – rented from a fashion archive, Karefa-Johnson wrote, and a nod to her love of secondhand clothes – and a pair of boots by the British label Miista. A regular sighting on New York City subway lines, Miista boots are beloved by young women who like the freaky fabulousness but not the price point of Prada or Balenciaga. You can get a pair secondhand on Depop or The Real Real for about $200. Here, she seemed to say, she’s just a regular, young New York woman, with a love for vintage and low-practical, low-heeled shoes.
Despite that market positioning, The New York Post seized on the boots, which retail for $630, as a sign of hypocrisy. How can Mamdani, who campaigned on a platform of affordability, tell New Yorkers he relates to their financial struggles when his wife appears by his side in $630 footwear? (Karefa-Johnson noted in her post a few hours later