{"id":32647,"date":"2025-11-08T00:37:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/32647\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T00:37:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:37:17","slug":"zeid-hijazi-is-the-palestinian-jordanian-designer-dressing-nycs-new-first-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/32647\/","title":{"rendered":"Zeid Hijazi Is the Palestinian-Jordanian Designer Dressing NYC\u2019s New First Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to first lady fashion, the mind immediately goes to boucl\u00e9 suits, pillbox hats<\/a> and the occasional questionable slogan parka from Zara. But, in the words of Bob Dylan, the times they are a-changin\u2019. The internet\u2014and the world at large\u2014can feel pretty bleak right now, so waking up on Thursday morning to \u201chopecore\u201d edits of Zohran Mamdani<\/a> set to a remix of Gwen Stefani\u2019s \u201cHollaback Girl\u201d was a welcome serotonin boost.<\/p>\n

Aside from being New York City\u2019s first Muslim mayor, Mamdani has been gaining legions of fans online thanks to his very cool wife, Rama Duwaji. Following Mamdani\u2019s win, the Syrian-American artist and new first lady of New York City joined her husband on stage modeling micro bangs and an embroidered top by London-based Palestinian artist Zeid Hijazi.<\/p>\n

Zeid, who studied at Central Saint Martins and won the Fashion Trust Arabia Prize in 2022, has, by his own admission, been \u201cghosting his DMs\u201d since he found out the news via Instagram (a 2025 success story if ever there was one). Taking a break from the flood of stock requests and congratulatory messages, the designer spoke to British Vogue about dressing the new first lady and the complexities of being a Palestinian designer.<\/p>\n

\"Rama<\/p>\n

Rama Duwaji and Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

ANGELA WEISS\/Getty ImagesHow did it feel seeing Rama Duwaji wear your design?<\/p>\n

You never know if it\u2019s actually going to happen, so I didn\u2019t let myself get too hyped. Then I woke up the next morning in Jordan, opened Instagram, and it was crazy. I never expected it to be this big. When a celebrity wears your piece, that\u2019s one thing, but when it\u2019s someone political, it takes on a whole new meaning. It didn\u2019t feel like it was about me anymore; it felt like it was about my community.<\/p>\n

How has your community reacted?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been beautiful. I\u2019ve had people message me who I haven\u2019t spoken to in years\u2014mothers, old friends\u2014just saying they\u2019re proud. That\u2019s the best part. As amazing as the press is, the best type of reaction is the reaction that I get from my community, especially people who have nothing to do with fashion and just want to see you succeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to first lady fashion, the mind immediately goes to boucl\u00e9 suits, pillbox hats and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10782,9,56,63,65,64,4230,11004,19647],"class_list":{"0":"post-32647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-digital_syndication","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-ny","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-nyc-headlines","13":"tag-nyc-news","14":"tag-runway","15":"tag-splitscreenimageleftinset","16":"tag-storytypeqa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}