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\n MARC JACOBS Dress (on loan). JEREMYN LEE ARCHIVE Vintage Shoes (on loan).
\n Photo: Szilveszter Mak\u00f3\n <\/p>\n
Rama Duwaji is moving in slow motion. At least, that\u2019s how it\u2019s felt since 10 p.m. on June 24, the night that put her on the fast track to becoming one of New York City\u2019s youngest First Ladies \u2014 and its first-ever Muslim one. An aide for her husband, Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, looked over at Duwaji and yelled over the cheering at his primary-election watch party at a brewery in Long Island City, \u201cHe won!\u201d In shock, Duwaji responded, \u201cWhat do you mean?!\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s camp hadn\u2019t anticipated the election to be called so early, let alone that night, but when the results were tallied in his favor, everything shifted. Mamdani quickly rewrote the speech he had planned, while an adviser began straight-talking with Duwaji: She was going onstage as the likely next First Lady<\/a>. \u201cI felt like I was walking through a fog,\u201d she told me earlier this month on the eve of her move to Gracie Mansion. \u201cMy friend came in from D.C. that day, and she got to experience that moment of seeing me \u2014 my brain \u2014 literally develop. I was like, Okay, I\u2019m locking in.\u201d<\/p>\n Suddenly, she was the de facto adviser to the most headline-grabbing political candidate of 2025, strategizing over morning chai and shaping the look and feel of the campaign, whether coaching him on his Arabic pronunciations for what would become a viral campaign video (she\u2019s a native speaker; he isn\u2019t) or shaping the playful graphic design of the campaign. (The flare on the Z and the serif on the R? Those were her ideas.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s a new role for the 28-year-old visual artist. Best known for her pen-and-ink portraits, predominantly of Arab women, her work has been commissioned by The New Yorker, Vogue, and this magazine. \u201cI joke with Zohran that I had more followers than him back in the day,\u201d Duwaji says. We\u2019re drinking tea across from each other in the back room at Huda, a Levantine restaurant in Williamsburg. She\u2019s scheduled to lead a private ceramics-painting workshop here later in the evening; Mamdani\u2019s senior adviser, Zara Rahim, sits quietly at our table, her own tape recorder running, likely to ensure what Duwaji says isn\u2019t taken out of context.<\/p>\n \n JACQUEMUS Jacket and Skirt (on loan). Unlike many candidates\u2019 wives who hit the circuit with their spouses, Duwaji frequently didn\u2019t appear at campaign events and fundraisers. She refused all interviews with the press \u2014 until now. Her reticence to being seen solely as Mrs. Mamdani seems to have raised her profile even further, making her something of a folk hero to unbothered women. When she taught a previously scheduled workshop on the night of a mayoral debate, the internet hailed Duwaji for skipping her husband\u2019s \u201cboring work event\u201d<\/a> and labeled her the \u201cchicest woman alive<\/a>\u201d for posting a carousel of photos of the art inspiring her during the week of the election, nary a smiling image of Mamdani in sight. Her black turtlenecks and her pixie cut \u2014 which Vogue called fall\u2019s new \u201ccool-girl\u201d look<\/a> \u2014 have launched a thousand TikTok fan edits (\u201cI didn\u2019t know if that was a real thing,\u201d Duwaji says when I tell her that women are asking their hairstylists for \u201cthe Rama\u201d).<\/p>\n When Duwaji met Mamdani in 2021, he was already in the State Assembly. And even if she recognized quickly that he was passionate and driven, both their eventual romance and his future job as the leader of one of the largest cities in the world were beyond what she ever imagined. \u201cI never necessarily dreamed or had a very idealistic scenario of what marriage would be. Even the word wife feels very intense,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cI just feel like a forever girlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n When I ask how she feels about becoming First Lady, she pauses for a moment to think. \u201cIt is surreal to hear. I think there are different ways to be First Lady, especially in New York,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I first heard it, it felt so formal and like \u2014\u00a0not that I didn\u2019t feel deserving of it, but it felt like, Me \u2026? Now I embrace it a bit more and just say, \u2018There are different ways to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n While New York\u2019s last First Lady, Chirlane McCray<\/a>, had an active role in her then-husband Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s<\/a> administration and an agenda of her own, Duwaji seems intent to have a lighter touch: \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m not a politician. I\u2019m here to be a support system for Z and to use the role in the best way that I can as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n \n DIOTIMA Shirt and Skirt (on loan). It\u2019s 45 minutes before Duwaji\u2019s ceramics class is set to start, and as I\u2019m schlepping my belongings from the central table to the back of the room, she\u2019s shifting into teacher mode. \u201cDid you eat? Are you hungry?\u201d Duwaji says while whizzing around, heeled black boots clicking on the concrete floor, as she unpacks boxes of tiles, paint, and parchment paper for her workshop. She has ordered a plate of rakakat, a fried roll of phyllo dough stuffed with melty Syrian cheese and doused in honey, and offers me a bite. \u201cHey,\u201d she sings calmly into her phone. She\u2019s calling in a favor from a friend. \u201cWould you mind stopping by Artist & Craftsman, right off the train, and picking up some brushes? We can\u2019t find them.\u201d Moments later, the brushes appear. Crisis averted.<\/p>\n Duwaji was born to Syrian parents in Houston, Texas, moving to New York and then New Jersey, where the self-described third-culture kid lived on a cul-de-sac, rode bikes, and had \u201cbeef\u201d with the neighborhood boys. She was a kindergartner in New York in 2001, when the planes hit the World Trade Center towers, and, like many Muslim Americans her age, quickly discovered the depths of Islamophobic bigotry. \u201cI grew up hearing all about what my parents experienced,\u201d she says. \u201cMy mom is a hijabi. My dad had to shave his beard.\u201d The family relocated to Dubai in 2007 when Duwaji was 9. Her mother, a pediatrician, had accepted a job at the American Hospital there, and her father took up work as a software developer. \u201cI think the misconception about Dubai is that it\u2019s all like being on a yacht with high-rises around you. But we lived in the suburbs, so it was more wholesome than city life. I lived in a neighborhood where I could walk to my friend\u2019s house,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cIt was very much a chiller, quieter childhood than one might expect.\u201d She admits, though, that she never quite let the States go. \u201cI did romanticize America in my head because I had loved it when I was younger. I never fully felt like Dubai was home \u2014 because I had known New York and New Jersey when I was younger \u2014 but it was a very safe and quiet way to grow up, especially back in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n In Dubai, she began to doodle in her school notebooks, on her hands, and in the margins of textbooks when bored in class. Eventually, she started asking classmates to pose for her. \u201cThen we\u2019d both get in trouble,\u201d she says, laughing. In an international baccalaureate program in high school, Duwaji tried her hand at photography and film but found herself constantly incorporating illustrations into her work: \u201cMy teacher, at one point, was just like, Girl. There was still a little window where I could switch over to art, and she sort of pushed me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n 20 AGE ARCHIVE Vintage Coat (on loan). MIISTA Shoes (on loan). She started college at a Virginia Commonwealth University outpost in Qatar, then transferred to the U.S. branch after freshman year in order to pursue an illustration program there. At one point, Duwaji\u2019s parents suggested she go into interior design as a more financially stable career path, but she persisted. \u201cThere are successful artists in the world,\u201d she says, \u201cso why wouldn\u2019t it be me?\u201d Around 2016, while still in school, Duwaji began posting her illustrations to Instagram and by her senior year was receiving messages asking for commissions. \u201cI was dealing with clients and invoices and getting paid for art, and it was almost interfering with my school in the end. I was like, Oh my God, not me having so much work,\u201d she jokes. Duwaji began attracting more prominent clientele, mostly in the Middle East: Vice Arabia, Spotify Arabia. In 2020, the BBC commissioned her<\/a> for a story on a woman who was a former political prisoner in Egypt and had experienced \u201cforced virginity tests\u201d during her time in prison. \u201cNot to say that working with western publishers means that I\u2019ve made it, but it was just more of a sign that there is a bigger audience that is now looking at my art.\u201d<\/p>\n When Duwaji graduated in 2019, she flew back to Dubai to spend time with family and began researching international artist residencies, eventually finding one she wanted to attend in Paris. She spent a mere week in the city just before the pandemic hit in 2020, opting to ride out the worst of it with her family back in Dubai. By 2021, though, Duwaji was itching for a change and reached out to her college roommate. \u201cThoughts on New York?\u201d she asked. In March, the two moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg off the J\/M Hewes Street subway stop and used the extra room as a joint art studio. \u201cIt was a pure-luck situation,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cI always wanted to live in New York. The art scene here, compared to anywhere else that I had lived, was thriving, and it just felt like the place to be to meet other artists.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of the day, I\u2019m not a politician. I\u2019m here to be a support system for Z and to use the role in the best way that I can as an artist.<\/p>\n Duwaji first became acquainted with the city on foot. She\u2019d walk around her neighborhood, poking her head into stores and studios. \u201cThere\u2019s a place called Fiction Bar. It\u2019s a caf\u00e9 during the day, bar during the night. It\u2019s very cozy vibes inside,\u201d she says. \u201cI was just walking home one day, and I would legitimately just hear trumpets and saxophone, and there I was.\u201d She also quickly took to riding Citi Bikes (her husband\u2019s campaign would later embrace the rideshare program). \u201cI know there are memes about it now, but when you bike over that Williamsburg Bridge, let me tell you, it\u2019s euphoric,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cBiking is really something that made me feel like I knew the city. I was so scared of having headphones in that I would just memorize the street turns. That familiarizes you with all the neighborhoods, then you can sort of flex.\u201d<\/p>\n \n PETER DO Coat, Jacket, Shirt, and Skirt (on loan). MARC JACOBS Shoes (on loan). Years before the New York Times was think-piecing<\/a> her fashion choices, she saw clothing as an extension of her art and politics. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have a little bit of analysis on the clothes because, for instance, during the general-election night, it was nice to send a message about Palestinians by wearing a Palestinian designer\u201d \u2014 the designer Zeid Hijazi, whose black top she paired with a skirt by the New York fixture Ulla Johnson. She brought this same intentionality to her cover shoot, where she wore a mix of young designers alongside New York\u2013based, POC-owned, and vintage brands, all on loan; she even wore a pair of ceramic hands made by photographer Szilveszter Mak\u00f3, a nod to her own artistic practice. \u201cI love fashion, and I love being creative and putting things together and styling things.\u201d She\u2019s spent years compiling the best stores for thrifting in the tristate area, even if she\u2019s not ready to blow up their spot just yet. \u201cI used to have a Google Maps folder with 50 different places. There\u2019s some great ones in Queens. There\u2019s some great ones in the Bronx,\u201d she tells me. \u201cIf you have a car, New Jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n Two of her friends from college, artists Sana Masud (whom she was living with) and Sarah Elawad (her friend of over a decade), were in Duwaji\u2019s inaugural New York circle. Quickly, though, she began meeting \u201cmutual Arab art girlies\u201d on Instagram, like photographer Dahlia Dandashi, who expanded her understanding of New York\u2019s creative scene. \u201cThey\u2019d always suggest, \u2018Let\u2019s grab coffee at this place,\u2019 or \u2018Do you want to catch a show at this place?\u2019 Through meeting them and getting to know them through the artists\u2019 scene, I sort of got a sense of what was cool and where all the good art shows are happening,\u201d Duwaji remembers.<\/p>\n While we chat, she is laying out blank ceramic tiles into neat squares and placing cups of paintbrushes around the room like table centerpieces. Her friends and their plus-ones file in; they\u2019ve come in from Bed-Stuy and Fort Greene and even London, some wearing graphic sweaters and baggy pants and others in work-appropriate slacks and flats. Duwaji exchanges hugs and at least one enthusiastic \u201cYeah, girl!\u201d (an inside joke among the group). Once everyone is seated, she boots up a projector and AirPlays a presentation from her iPad. She explains that the evening\u2019s theme is \u201cTooty Fruity\u201d \u2014 Duwaji has doodled the O\u2019s as a pair of cherries \u2014 which she encourages guests to interpret as they wish or ignore altogether as they paint their tiles. She shares the visual references that inspired her, swiping through images of names carved into a watermelon, a butterfly made of root vegetables, a Palestinian flag made of produce, and covers of Fruits, the now-shuttered Japanese fashion magazine. There are pictures of Duwaji and her friends harvesting molokhia, a leafy jute plant popular in Arab cuisine, upstate; of the olive harvest in the West Bank, where Palestinians tend to their trees and pick up branches axed by Israeli settlers; and the kind of cheeky clip art that Middle Eastern aunties love to send their family WhatsApp chats. \u201cI love how intertwined fruit is with the language we speak with our loved ones,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \n Duwaji wears ceramic hands made by photographer Szilveszter Mak\u00f3, a nod to her artistic practice. JACQUEMUS Jacket and Skirt (on loan). Whether in her illustrations, animations, or ceramics, much of her work is informed by growing up in the diaspora and the summers she spent visiting her grandparents in Syria. Women with coarse curls, prominent noses, and defined eyebrows feature heavily in her drawings. \u201cI just see a beautiful, strong profile, and I\u2019m like, I need to draw that woman.\u201d Her portfolio is full of soft images of womanhood: a girl resting<\/a> among tall blades of grass and flowers; another peeling a clementine<\/a> in the shade of a tree; and two women, face-to-face, asking each other in Arabic, \u201cHow are you?\u201d There are also weightier works depicting the war on Gaza<\/a> and revolutionaries killed in Syria.<\/p>\n \u201cSpeaking out about Palestine, Syria, Sudan \u2014 all these things are really important to me,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m always keeping up to date with what\u2019s going on, not just here but elsewhere. It feels fake to talk about anything else when that\u2019s all that\u2019s on my mind, all I want to put down on paper,\u201d she says. \u201cEverything is political; it\u2019s the thing that I talk about with Z\u201d \u2014Duwaji\u2019s nickname for her husband \u2014 \u201cand my friends, the thing that I\u2019m up to date with every morning, which is probably not great for my mental health. It\u2019s what I talk about when I check on my family back home.\u201d<\/p>\n Duwaji has continued posting her art to Instagram through the course of the campaign, and two days after the election, she shared an illustration<\/a> of the New York City skyline, under which she\u2019d written \u201cI \u2665\ufe0fU NYC.\u201d The post has over 230,000 likes. Her work has attracted its share of haters, too, like New York Post<\/a> reporters who accuse her of using her art to \u201crage against U.S. imperialism\u201d and express sympathy to \u201cnotorious terrorist propagandists\u201d \u2014 claims that, to Duwaji, are \u201cmisconstrued.\u201d \u201cI stopped trying to control how people perceive the work that I do,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople just see what they want to see. I base my work, obviously, out of emotion but also research and the news.<\/p>\n \n JACQUEMUS Jacket and Skirt (on loan). JEREMYN LEE ARCHIVE Vintage Shoes (on loan). \u201cWhen you suddenly have, literally, a million eyes on your work, it does make you have the urge to clean stuff up. You do overthink small things. But luckily, I just live in denial,\u201d she says, laughing, and then adds, \u201cI try not to think of Instagram as my audience and more me and my art peers. I can\u2019t think about that big of an audience.\u201d Her duties as First Lady, she feels, are in essence the same as the ones she has as an artist with a platform. \u201cThere are so many artists trying to make it in the city \u2014 so many talented, undiscovered artists making the work with no instant validation, using their last paycheck on material,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cI think using this position to highlight them and give them a platform is a top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n Lately, Duwaji has been short on the time needed to focus on her own work, to make the kind of art she desires. \u201cI have so much work that I have planned out, down to the dimensions and the colors that I\u2019m going to use and materials,\u201d she says. \u201cSome of that has been slightly put on hold, but I\u2019m absolutely going to be focused on being a working artist. I\u2019m definitely not stopping that. Come January, it\u2019s something that I want to continue to do.\u201d<\/p>\n When Duwaji met Mamdani on Hinge in August 2021, she, like many single women who had just started going out again post-pandemic, wasn\u2019t particularly looking for anything serious. \u201cI was sort of having a hot-girl summer,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI didn\u2019t necessarily expect it to happen so soon, but it was a very lovely surprise that it worked.\u201d The then-assemblyman swiped right on her first, to which Duwaji responded with a direct message. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to yap, so I think I must have said something first,\u201d she says. \u201cOur conversation was really brief, maybe, like, five exchanges, and then we met up pretty soon after that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy first impression was that I could not believe how beautiful she was,\u201d Mamdani told me, practically singing, over the phone in December. \u201cI actually called one of my closest friends after just seeing her profile, without even having been matched, and said, \u2018I think this is someone special.\u2019\u201d The two met up for a first date at Juliette, a French restaurant in Williamsburg, before taking a walk around McCarren Park. During their second meeting, Mamdani, who was already working as an assemblyman in Astoria when he matched with Duwaji, gave her a tour of his neighborhood, perhaps inadvertently creating his own \u201cbring your date to work\u201d day. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know what an assemblymember was at the time, but I had indicated to him that I was politically inclined \u2014 not necessarily being in politics but being political, caring about people \u2014 so it wasn\u2019t an ick to me,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cIt was like, Oh, that\u2019s his job. Like, I\u2019m an artist; he\u2019s an assemblymember.\u201d<\/p>\n \n FFORME Jacket (on loan). TWP Shirt (on loan). GREY\u2019S Skirt (on loan). JEREMYN LEE ARCHIVE Vintage Shoes (on loan). The concept of Mamdani running for mayor was broached slowly between the couple in early 2024. \u201cWe had a final conversation that summer before the campaign launched that October. We sat down and went through all the pros and cons. There are sacrifices that are made when you submit to a year \u2014 and obviously more now \u2014 of running a campaign and potentially winning,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cIt was sitting down and talking about \u2018Here\u2019s the worst-case scenario; here\u2019s the best-case scenario.\u2019 We talked through how we\u2019d work through it as a team. It felt like he really valued my opinion and support.\u201d Though ultimately she told her husband to \u201c100 percent go for it,\u201d Mamdani says he never would\u2019ve launched his campaign without Duwaji\u2019s blessing. \u201cWe had a chance, and it was a very small chance. I described it then as a 3 percent chance of winning the race,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I also said that I was going to give everything I had to the campaign and that inevitably this would start to transform our lives, and that\u2019s why it had to be a decision that we made, as opposed to one that I made and told her about.\u201d<\/p>\n In February 2025, Mamdani was still polling in last place at one percent<\/a>, but his campaign picked up steam the next month after a video of Mamdani protesting at the State Capitol went viral<\/a>. It was then that the couple\u2019s prediction that their lives would be transformed quickly came to fruition. The mayor-elect\u2019s campaign raised $250,000 in just 24 hours<\/a>. Mamdani had officially arrived in the race, which meant the public interest in their marriage was sure to intensify.<\/p>\n In April, photos of Duwaji and Mamdani in Dubai for their Nikah, an Islamic wedding ceremony, were \u201cleaked,\u201d according to Duwaji, by their florist. The Post<\/a> insinuated the couple\u2019s marriage was a \u201csecret,\u201d although Mamdani had already told Interview magazine<\/a> that he\u2019d gotten married in a civil ceremony that year. Many gushed over how beautiful and in love the couple looked. Others used the moment to drag out their grossest stereotypes (\u201cIsn\u2019t she supposed to wear a tablecloth?\u201d) and, for whatever reason, invoked 9\/11. People were \u201ccommenting about either how I\u2019m covering up too little, or Sharia law \u2014 all this nonsense,\u201d she says. \u201cI was okay because I was comfortable in who I was and how I dress and what kind of Muslim I am.\u201d While Duwaji moved through the vitriol as best she could, the hate took a toll on Mamdani. \u201cOf the difficulties and challenges that come with this work, the most difficult thing has been seeing her have to deal with these kinds of attacks, this kind of language,\u201d he tells me. \u201cShe did not sign up for this.\u201d<\/p>\n \n GREY\u2019S Sweater (on loan). The couple decided to make public their their courthouse-wedding photos, the ones of Duwaji in a white slip dress carrying a bouquet of flowers she\u2019d picked up from a bodega. \u201cThree months ago, I married the love of my life, Rama, at the City Clerk\u2019s office,\u201d the mayor-elect wrote in an Instagram caption<\/a>. \u201cNow, right-wing trolls are trying to make this race \u2014 which should be about you \u2014 about her. Rama isn\u2019t just my wife, she\u2019s an incredible artist who deserves to be known on her own terms. You can critique my views, but not my family.\u201d<\/p>\n The exposure rattled Duwaji. \u201cIt felt really vulnerable to be perceived at that level,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s surreal to see how many people have seen photos that were not even meant to be seen by anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n It also forced her to accept that she was no longer a private citizen. \u201cI realized that it was not just his thing but our thing,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t necessarily offended, but it was more the perception of being seen as someone\u2019s wife. I was spiraling about how, that night, the first article to come out was like, \u2018Who Is Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Wife?\u2019 Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was so upset because that one article showed up when you searched my name and not an interview I did on my art, or my work, or the things that I\u2019ve done and the achievements that I\u2019ve had as an artist. And now there\u2019s, like, a bajillion of them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n ASHLYN Coat (on loan). RENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE Dress (on loan). MARC JACOBS Shoes (on loan). Duwaji views her current state of affairs \u2014 the media attention, the well-meaning yet eager burgeoning fan base, the microscope she\u2019s currently living under \u2014 as \u201ca temporary period of chaos. I know it\u2019s gonna die down.\u201d Now that she\u2019s frequently getting stopped on the street, she says, \u201csometimes I\u2019ll wear my sunglasses, and that makes me a little more incognito.\u201d There have been at least two instances in which passersby have yelled \u201crandom \u2018Fuck you\u2019s\u201d in her direction, though she finds it \u201cvery polite\u201d that the hecklers didn\u2019t drag it out and, in New York fashion, kept it moving.<\/p>\n When you suddenly have a million eyes on your work, it does make you have the urge to clean stuff up. You do overthink small things. But luckily, I just live in denial.<\/p>\n As confident as Duwaji was in her husband\u2019s bid for office, she\u2019s perhaps even more so in her ability to return to and retain the rhythm of her pre-campaign life: completing commissions, grocery shopping, going to the library, doodling still-life sketches into her notebook on the subway. Some might say those aspirations are wishful thinking, but longtime friend Elawad thinks Duwaji will find a way. \u201cWhen she sets her mind to something, nothing can get in her way. If she is like, \u2018I\u2019m not going to let the idea \u2014 the fear \u2014 of being perceived stop me from being who I am,\u2019 then I believe she\u2019s going to do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As Duwaji fills color palettes with paint in the back of the room, her friends gush about first dates, shattered friendships (someone\u2019s friend confessed their love), situationships (\u201cWhen are we going to meet him?\u201d), and how work is going (poorly for some, great for others). Their patter is fast and loud, packed with belly laughter; dramatic, incredulous gasps; and quotes from viral TikToks (\u201cPooja, what is this behavior?\u201d<\/a>). A friend\u2019s little sister FaceTimes in, and Duwaji rushes over to say hello. \u201cGirl! Are you smoking a cigarette?!\u201d she admonishes with a smile. The singular time the campaign comes up, it\u2019s one of her best friends lamenting AI-slop memes of Mamdani, his family, and Duwaji \u2014 specifically, a fake video claiming that Duwaji taught Mamdani English. Everyone in the room laughs at the absurdity. \u201cI had to tell my dad it was fake,\u201d a friend says.<\/p>\n Earlier in the evening, before everyone had even arrived, the artist had teared up at the mention of her friends \u2014 at the role her crew had played, and continues to play, in grounding her. \u201cHaving platonic love and friendship is really important throughout all this. If you dwell too much on everything that\u2019s happening, and go through Twitter, it can get so overwhelming,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then you just hang out with your friends and they\u2019re talking about \u2018Is Usher hot or not?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n COLLEEN ALLEN Shirt (on loan). Mamdani now faces historic challenges: the housing and affordability crises, the threat of National Guard and ICE crackdowns, and the ambitious campaign promises that will require support that Albany is unlikely to give. And then there\u2019s the question of the more personal domestic policy: Can he serve the people of New York and maintain whatever promises he made to his wife at home?<\/p>\n To make the most of their time together, the two have fine-tuned their schedules, opting to wake up at the same time most days to make breakfast and drink their morning chai. (\u201cWe\u2019re focused on protein right now,\u201d Duwaji says. \u201cDon\u2019t sleep on cottage cheese. Put some chives on it \u2014 it\u2019s really good.\u201d) The couple have traded their daytime strolls in the park for ones in the dark, late at night (trailed by a security detail, of course), or more inconspicuous dates at the movie theater. Their most recent pick was the third installment of the Knives Out series. (\u201cWe love Josh O\u2019Connor.\u201d) \u201cI was joking to Z and saying that the darkness is kind of like our friend because it\u2019s anonymity,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was like, \u2018You sound like Batman.\u2019 But it\u2019s true!\u201d<\/p>\n In December, Mamdani announced via Instagram that he and Duwaji had both decided to leave their rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, a neighborhood that went solidly for the mayor-elect and has a sizable Muslim population, and move into Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, a neighborhood that has been less than enthused about Mamdani\u2019s ascent to power. Duwaji will now have for neighbors some of the very people who have lobbed the loudest accusations of antisemitism<\/a> and the baldest Islamophobic attacks on her husband.<\/p>\n \n 20 AGE ARCHIVE Vintage Coat (on loan). MIISTA Shoes (on loan). Duwaji takes a breath, pausing when I ask her about becoming an Upper East Sider, and then deflates. \u201cIt\u2019ll be fine. I\u2019ll be down the street from the Guggenheim and the Met. It\u2019ll be really nice to just explore a new part of the city,\u201d she says before relenting. \u201cAnd I\u2019m right across the river from Astoria still, so it doesn\u2019t feel too far away.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that, for Mamdani, home is where Duwaji is. \u201cOne of the more beautiful things has also been that, when I walk through the door and I see her at the end of each day, I am still the person I was before I ran for mayor,\u201d he tells me. \u201cAnd to have someone for whom you can continue to be yourself, as opposed to just a position that you are on the brink of having, it\u2019s important so that you don\u2019t lose who you are and why it is that you do what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible to say how much of the life Duwaji once knew will stay intact. At the workshop, though, glimpses of an already transformed Duwaji are breaking through. Throughout the evening, she periodically asks her friends her favorite question, one she says she used to ask on first dates or whenever she needed an icebreaker: \u201cWhat kind of fruit would you be and why?\u201d Someone says they see themselves as a mangosteen, another a passion fruit. Duwaji tells the room she used to be a raspberry, \u201csweet but a little tart.\u201d Now, though, she\u2019s become something new: a lychee, someone with \u201ca slightly hardened shell but still open and soft on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated where Duwaji and Mamdani had their first date. They met at the French restaurant Juliette.<\/p>\n \n COLLEEN ALLEN Shirt and Skirt (on loan). JEREMYN LEE ARCHIVE Vintage Shoes (on loan). Production Credits<\/p>\n Photography and Art Direction by Styling by Photo Assistants: Hair by Makeup by Manicure by Styling Assistants: Set Design by Set Design Assistants: Tailoring by Production by Photography Management Production Assistants The Cut, Editor-in-Chief The Cut, Photo Director The Cut, Features Editor The Cut, Photo Editor The Cut, Fashion Market Editor ![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/7e1887e0aaa87cb7fca166d6d73fe18c57-rama-duwaji-cut-cover-FINAL.w710.jpg\")
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\n Szilveszter Mak\u00f3<\/p>\n
\n Jessica Willis<\/p>\n
\n YC Dong,\u00a0David Gannon,\u00a0and\u00a0Veasna Bogliolo<\/p>\n
\n Panos Papandrianos<\/p>\n
\n Raoul Alejandre<\/p>\n
\n Leanne Woodley<\/p>\n
\n Or\u00e9 Zaccheus\u00a0and\u00a0Jack Novotny<\/p>\n
\n Lane Vineyard<\/p>\n
\n Gabrielle Arriaga,\u00a0Germ\u00e1n Rojas,\u00a0and\u00a0Campbell Reid<\/p>\n
\n Lindsay Wright<\/p>\n
\n Katya Varzar<\/p>\n
\n Siyan Chen<\/p>\n
\n Anastasiia Rybalkina\u00a0and\u00a0Mario Ballesteros<\/p>\n
\n Lindsay Peoples<\/p>\n
\n Noelle Lacombe<\/p>\n
\n Catherine Thompson<\/p>\n
\n Sof\u00eda Mareque<\/p>\n
\n Emma Oleck<\/p>\n