On a rain-soaked February morning in 2025, a young woman in a white dress and knee-high boots stepped onto a crowded subway train in Astoria, Queens. She carried a small bouquet of flowers—purchased minutes earlier—and held the hand of the man she was about to marry.
There were no bridesmaids, no fanfare, no carefully orchestrated photo shoots. Just three people riding the N train to City Hall: Rama Duwaji, her soon-to-be-husband Zohran Mamdani, and their photographer friend who had known all along that this day would come.
Less than a year later, that same woman would stand in a former subway station beneath City Hall, holding two Qurans as her husband was sworn in as the 112th mayor of New York City. At 28 years old, Rama Duwaji became the city’s first Gen Z First Lady, its first Muslim First Lady, and arguably its most artistically accomplished one. But to understand Rama Duwaji—the woman, the artist, the cultural force—one must look beyond the titles and into the hands that create, the voice that advocates, and the heritage that grounds everything she does.
The Hands That Draw Damascus
Rama Sawaf Duwaji was born on June 30, 1997, in Houston, Texas, to Syrian parents who carried Damascus in their hearts even as they built lives in America. Her father, Marwan Duwaji, works as a software developer; her mother, Dr. Bariah Dardari, is a pediatrician who has devoted herself to humanitarian missions in war zones through the Syrian American Medical Society. From her earliest memories, Rama found solace in drawing—a refuge that would become both her language and her livelihood.
“Drawing has always been my solace,” Duwaji has said, recalling how she would get in trouble for doodling in her textbooks and notebooks at school. Those early sketches, born from a child’s need to process a world split between cultures, would evolve into illustrations that now grace the pages of The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and installations at London’s Tate Modern.
When Duwaji was nine years old, the family relocated to Dubai after her mother accepted a position at the American Hospital. She spent the remainder of her childhood in the Persian Gulf, navigating the complex terrain of being the Amreekiya—the American—in a region where her Syrian heritage was both claim and question. This diasporic existence, this perpetual state of being between worlds, would become the fertile ground from which her art would grow.
Her parents supported her artistic inclinations but, like many immigrant parents, encouraged practicality. Duwaji pursued communication design at Virginia Commonwealth University, starting at the satellite campus in Doha, Qatar, before transferring to Richmond, Virginia, where she graduated cum laude with her BFA in 2019. She then participated in artist residencies across Beirut, Paris, and Dubai before making the decisive move to New York City in 2021.
‘Sahtain!’—Art as Communal Memory
At the School of Visual Arts in New York, Duwaji completed her Master of Fine Arts in Illustration as Visual Essay in 2024. Her thesis project, titled “Sahtain!”—an Arabic phrase meaning “two healths” or “bon appétit”—explored the profound act of making and sharing food as a communal experience. Through animated recipes and ceramic dinner displays, the mixed-media project examined food not merely as sustenance but as memory, culture, and resistance.
“Unlike traditional ‘Sahtain!’, her art form is about what food represents: memory and the shared warmth of culture. She has transformed her cultural rituals into a path of emotion and history.”
Riccardo Vecchio, chair of her graduate program at SVA, praised Duwaji as “very focused on her work,” highlighting her dedication to representing voices often overlooked in Western art. The project showcased her ability to transform the mundane into the meaningful, to find politics in the preparation of a dish, identity in the sharing of a meal.
After completing her MFA, Duwaji was selected—from over 500 applicants—as one of 24 artists for a prestigious residency in the Catskill Mountains. There, surrounded by nature and solitude, her practice deepened, her animations grew more fluid, her ceramics more intentional.
The Art of Resistance
Duwaji’s artistic practice is multidisciplinary—illustration, animation, ceramics—but unified by a singular focus: exploring Arab womanhood, diaspora experiences, and social justice. Her work employs what critics have called “expressive minimalism,” using clean lines and drawn portraiture to examine the nuances of sisterhood and communal experiences.
In 2023, she illustrated a storyboard for The Washington Post featuring the harrowing account of Reem Ahmed, a Palestinian architect who was trapped under rubble for 12 hours after an Israeli airstrike that killed members of her family. Her animations addressing the ongoing humanitarian crises in Gaza, Sudan, and Syria have garnered millions of views, transforming complex geopolitical realities into accessible, emotionally resonant visual narratives.
This mission manifests in her 32-page wordless comic Razor Burn, which follows a young woman grappling with body dysmorphia through high school, struggling with insecurities about arm hair, her nose, and acne. The work resonated deeply online, leading to commissions from BBC, Apple, Spotify, VICE, and even luxury brands like Cartier.
Yet Duwaji maintains a critical distance from the notion that art alone can move mountains. In a recent interview with Yung magazine, she reflected: “While I believe that art is important and an important tool, over the years I’ve actually felt that expecting my art to move people stems from the ego. My art stays being a reflection of what’s happening around me, but right now what feels even more useful than my role as an artist, is my role as a U.S. citizen.”
Clay, Fire, and Healing
When Duwaji needs respite from the digital realm—from screens and tablets and the relentless scroll—she turns to ceramics. In her Brooklyn studio, surrounded by half-finished works and stacks of illustrated plates in soft blues and whites, she builds vessels by hand, combining Islamic geometric patterns with contemporary storytelling.
“Pottery grounds me—it’s tactile, forgiving,” she has noted. Her handmade plates, adorned with whimsical motifs of cardamom pods and crescent moons, sell out at Brooklyn workshops where she mentors emerging artists. These ceramic works blend her love for illustration with the ancient craft of pottery, creating functional art that carries the weight of heritage and the lightness of creativity.
The act of creation itself—the slow building of clay walls, the careful painting of designs, the anticipation of the kiln—offers her what digital work cannot: the physical memory of making, the irreversibility of fire, the surprise of glaze. It’s this same philosophy that informed her MFA thesis, this understanding that creation and community are inseparable, that the hands that make are also the hands that share.
A Modern Love Story
In 2021, while establishing herself in New York’s art world, Duwaji swiped right on a dating app called Hinge. The man on the other end was Zohran Mamdani, then a relatively unknown New York State Assembly member from Astoria with big ideas about democratic socialism and affordable housing. Their connection was immediate.
According to their photographer friend Kara McCurdy, Mamdani told her soon after meeting Duwaji that he believed he would marry her—a statement that surprised McCurdy because Mamdani often joked about wanting a rom-com-style love story. But his certainty was genuine.
They were engaged in October 2024 and held a private nikah ceremony—an Islamic marriage contract—two months later in Dubai, where Duwaji’s family still lives. The celebration took place on the rooftop of Vida Creek Harbour with the Burj Khalifa gleaming in the background, attended by close friends and family.
Then came that February morning at City Hall. McCurdy, who documented the day, later told Vanity Fair: “It was just really nice because nobody knew them at the time. So they had this gorgeous private day to themselves. It was raining, so there weren’t a lot of people out and about.” The photos show a couple navigating the subway during rush hour, squeezing into a crowded N train, walking through rain-slicked streets—two New Yorkers in love, on their way to make a quiet promise.
After the ceremony, they didn’t host a formal reception. Instead, they went to Nice One Bakery in Chinatown for buns—an utterly ordinary, profoundly New York choice that captured the essence of who they are.
They held a third ceremony in July 2025 in Uganda, Mamdani’s birth country, honoring his roots and weaving together their disparate but complementary heritages—Syrian and Ugandan, artist and activist, Brooklyn and Astoria.
The Artist in the Campaign
When Mamdani announced his candidacy for New York City mayor in 2025, Duwaji faced a choice familiar to many women: how much of herself to subsume into her partner’s ambitions. Her answer was characteristically thoughtful and fiercely independent.
She helped curate the visual identity of Mamdani’s campaign—designing iconography and finalizing fonts that showcased a distinct blend of New York: MetroCard orange-yellow, New York Mets blue, and splashes of firehouse red. The typography called back to bold bodega signs, the aesthetic vocabulary of working-class New York. It was art in service of politics, but it was also politics as art—visual storytelling that communicated values before a single word was spoken.
Yet Duwaji refused to become merely an extension of the campaign. She didn’t stump for Mamdani at rallies. She didn’t do joint television appearances or agree to splashy magazine profiles during the race. Her Instagram remained largely focused on her art—Middle Eastern women in contemplation, advocacy for Palestinian rights, calls for justice in Sudan and Syria.
On primary day in June 2025, she posted a single carousel of photos: the couple together, herself voting early, and a childhood photo of Mamdani. Her caption was brief: “Couldn’t possibly be prouder.” No speeches, no performances, just the quiet acknowledgment of a shared journey.
This approach drew criticism from some quarters and praise from others. When right-wing trolls attempted to weaponize her pro-Palestine artwork against Mamdani’s campaign, he responded publicly in May: “Three months ago, I married the love of my life, Rama, at the City Clerk’s office. Now, right-wing trolls are trying to make this race—which should be about you—about her. Rama isn’t just my wife, she’s an incredible artist who deserves to be known on her own terms. You can critique my views, but not my family.”
Inauguration Day: Fashion as Statement
On January 1, 2026, as the clock struck midnight, Zohran Mamdani became the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of New York City. Standing beside him in a shuttered City Hall subway station was Rama Duwaji, dressed in a minimalist black coat, knee-length black dress, and black ankle boots, accented by sculptural gold earrings. She held two Qurans from the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as State Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath.
Hours later, for the public ceremony, Duwaji emerged in a chocolate-brown A-line coat with a funnel neck, trimmed at the hem and cuffs with faux fur. The coat was custom-made by Palestinian-Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej of Renaissance Renaissance, crafted in Lebanon by Lebanese women—Merhej’s mother, seamstress Nona, patternmaker Souad, and cousins Kristy and Jess.
For election night months earlier, Duwaji had worn a laser-cut denim top by Palestinian designer Zeid Hijazi, paired with an Ulla Johnson skirt and Eddie Borgo earrings. Every choice was intentional, every garment a declaration: she would use fashion not as decoration but as advocacy, supporting emerging designers from the Middle East and committing to circular fashion through rentals and secondhand pieces.
Her approach to style—what observers have called “art-world chic” or “forever girlfriend” aesthetic—has already inspired trends. The “Rama hairstyle” circulates on TikTok. Fashion commentators note her preference for vintage shopping, oversized silhouettes, Western boots, big hoops, and a mostly-black palette. She wears what she loves, what tells her story, what honors her heritage—not what political consultants might recommend.
The Cut Cover and Public Emergence
The images sparked immediate reaction online. Reddit commenters compared the portraits to paintings, noting they had to remind themselves they were looking at photographs. References to Richard Avedon and Irving Penn appeared in threads. One notable detail: the photographer crafted ceramic hands specifically for the shoot, mirroring Duwaji’s own ceramic work—a meta-artistic gesture that acknowledged her practice even as it documented her new role.
In the accompanying interview, Duwaji spoke candidly about her plans: “I love fashion, and I love being creative and putting things together and styling things.” She expressed commitment to continuing her independent art career while using her platform to highlight emerging creatives and advocate for social justice, particularly Palestinian rights.
Her decision to debut in The Cut rather than a traditional political publication signaled her approach: she would engage the public on her terms, through platforms that aligned with her values and aesthetics.
Gen Z Leadership in a Historic Role
At 28, Duwaji represents something genuinely new in New York City politics. She’s the youngest First Lady in the city’s history, the first of Generation Z to hold the position, and the first Muslim woman in the role. But perhaps more significantly, she’s redefining what the position means in an era when traditional political spouse expectations feel increasingly anachronistic.
The role of New York City’s First Lady has been largely absent in modern city politics. Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch were unmarried during their tenures; Eric Adams is single. The last First Lady to have significant public presence was Chirlane McCray, wife of Bill de Blasio, who served as chair of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and championed mental health initiatives.
Duwaji has indicated she will chart her own path. Friends and observers expect her to use the platform to support immigrant youth through art workshops, teach ceramics in public housing, and commission work from Arab-American artists for public spaces. There’s talk of murals on subway cars, of Gulf-inspired public gardens, of interfaith outreach rooted in her Shia Muslim faith.
What seems certain is that she won’t perform the role according to convention. As Karefa-Johnson wrote about styling Duwaji for the inauguration, their conversations were “all in service of subtly subverting expectations of how a First Lady can—or ‘should’—present. And I think we finally found the answer: However the f*ck she wants to.”
The Weight of Representation
Being the first Gen Z and first Muslim First Lady of New York City carries weight that extends far beyond personal achievement. Duwaji becomes, whether she sought it or not, a symbol for millions of young Muslim women, Arab-Americans, and children of diaspora navigating their own hyphenated identities.
On social media, young women express what her presence means to them. “Rama is giving First Lady!!! So poised!” reads one comment. “She gives such Princess Diana vibes,” writes another. A more substantive observation notes: “Seeing Rama Duwaji wearing and embracing her Syrian heritage so proudly while steering away from the traditional ‘first lady’ figure is the kind of honesty that we love to see.”
Yet Duwaji has been clear about the limitations of individual representation. In her April 2025 interview with Yung magazine, she addressed the pressure to be perfect, to embody every hope: “The phrase ‘silence is complicity’ is everywhere now, especially in creative spaces… I believe everyone has a responsibility to speak out against injustice. And art has such an ability to spread it.”
She uses her Instagram—where she now has over 2 million followers—not for selfies and lifestyle content but for advocacy. In August 2025, following Israeli strikes that killed 28-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anas al-Sharif in Gaza, she shared an animation featuring a metal chain encircling his words, a visual meditation on silencing and resistance.
Her work on Sudan, Syria, and Palestine continues even as she assumes her new role. In April 2023, she posted an illustration of a woman with text reading “Eyes on Sudan,” followed by information on the country’s civil war and ways to support refugees and domestic violence victims. These aren’t ancillary to her identity as First Lady—they’re central to it.
The Brooklyn Studio Endures
Despite moving into Gracie Mansion, Duwaji has maintained her Brooklyn studio—a deliberate choice that speaks volumes about her priorities. The space remains cluttered with the detritus of creation: half-finished ceramics, digital tablets glowing with ideas, stacks of illustrated plates in soft blues and whites, sketches pinned haphazardly to walls.
Here, she continues to work on commissions, to experiment with new techniques, to teach workshops to emerging artists. Recent work includes imagery for Vogue titled “The Cutter, the Sewer, and the Grommet Queen”—a piece highlighting garment workers during New York Fashion Week. “Highlighting the people behind the craftsmanship of Fashion Week and how labor visibility is so important when so much of everything else feels so extractive and non-human!” she wrote on Instagram.
She contributed original illustrations to the 2025 Restless Classics edition of The 1,001 Nights, bringing her aesthetic to these foundational Middle Eastern folktales. She continues to teach workshops on illustration, animation, and ceramics—sharing skills, building community, nurturing the next generation of artists who might also find themselves navigating impossible positions between art and advocacy, between heritage and homeland.
“These days, I focus on making art about my experiences and the things I care about, and the community that forms from conversations about my work—both online and in person—happens organically.”
What Comes Next
As Rama Duwaji settles into her role as First Lady, the question isn’t whether she’ll conform to tradition—she’s already made clear she won’t. The question is how her unique synthesis of art, advocacy, and identity will reshape what it means to occupy this position in America’s largest, most diverse city.
Her story offers a different model of female political partnership, one that doesn’t demand the erasure of self in service of a spouse’s ambitions. She stands alongside Mamdani without standing behind him, supports his vision while maintaining her own, occupies public space without surrendering private creativity.
For young women watching—particularly young Arab women, Muslim women, immigrant women, artist women—Duwaji’s presence matters in ways that transcend policy or politics. She represents possibility: that you can be deeply rooted in heritage while reaching for new horizons, that you can be politically engaged without being consumed by politics, that you can hold multiple identities without fracturing.
Her hands will continue to draw Damascus even as they hold the hand of New York City’s mayor. Her voice will continue to speak for the silenced even as she navigates the protocols of Gracie Mansion. Her art will continue to examine the nuances of sisterhood and communal experience even as she assumes a role historically defined by its relationship to male power.
In many ways, Duwaji’s life has always been about bridging divides—between Damascus and Dubai, Dubai and New York, artist and activist, private and public, heritage and innovation. Now she adds one more bridge to the collection: between the traditional expectations of political partnership and the radical possibility of defining the role on your own terms.
As she told Yung magazine: “With so many people being pushed out and silenced by fear, all I can do is use my voice to speak out about what’s happening in the U.S. and Palestine and Syria as much as I can.”
That voice—amplified now by her position but not fundamentally changed by it—will be one of the most compelling aspects of the Mamdani administration. Not because it provides easy answers or comfortable narratives, but because it refuses to be anything other than itself: honest, artistic, grounded in community, committed to justice, unapologetically Arab, proudly Muslim, entirely her own.
In the end, perhaps the most radical thing about Rama Duwaji isn’t that she’s young, or Muslim, or an artist, or Gen Z. It’s that in assuming a role historically designed to amplify men’s voices, she has insisted—quietly, persistently, artfully—on keeping her own.
Sources
- Rama Duwaji – Wikipedia
- Meet Rama Duwaji, the Artist Who Met Zohran Mamdani on Hinge – TIME
- Rama Duwaji: What to know about Zohran Mamdani’s wife – CNN Politics
- Meet Rama Duwaji, the Artist Wife of Newly Elected NYC Mayor – ELLE
- A Dialogue with Rama Duwaji – Art, Activism, and the Spaces In Between – Yung Magazine
- Selections from Thesis Projects – School of Visual Arts
- In conversation with Rama Duwaji – Shado Magazine (2019)
- Who is Rama Duwaji? New York’s First Gen Z First Lady, Stars in The Cut – The Daily Guardian
- The Inauguration Style of New York City’s New First Lady – Harper’s Bazaar
- Rama Duwaji Official Website
- Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Rama Duwaji is An Artist in Her Own Right – WWD
- What to Wear at Midnight and the Morning After (If You’re the First Lady of New York) – Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, Substack
- In Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji’s New York, everyone is entitled to a little glamour – CNN
- Rama Duwaji Steps Into Spotlight as New Images Show Intimate NYC Wedding Moments – IBTimes UK
- Jackie of Gen Z: How Rama Duwaji’s Style and Vision Shaped Mamdani’s Historic Campaign – American Kahani
