Rama Duwaji is having a busy fall.
There she was within the entrance row on the runway present for Diotima throughout New York Trend Week, sitting close to Instagram govt Eva Chen, clothier Willy Chavarria, and mannequin and activist Bethann Hardison.
Duwaji had illustrations revealed in a characteristic article in New York journal in regards to the objects that Palestinians took with them after they fled their houses within the Gaza Strip.
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Over Labor Day weekend, as a singer crooned in Farsi and an oud participant strummed gently, she sat on a bench within the yard of a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a fundraiser for mutual assist teams in Sudan. A few of her prints had been on the market on a desk contained in the bar. One, in black and white, confirmed two ladies, standing defiantly, with their arms interlocked and their backs pressed in opposition to one another.
What Duwaji, 28, has not been doing this summer season and fall, is stumping for her husband.
That husband was a little-known state Meeting member whom Duwaji matched with on Hinge in 2021 — when she was residing the sort of younger artist’s life, as a contract animator and illustrator, that she envisioned when she moved to New York after school. He’s now very well-known: Zohran Mamdani.
And Duwaji is getting used to what her brand-new husband’s marketing campaign for mayor in a extremely publicized race means for her, and their life collectively.
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State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a candidate for mayor of New York Metropolis, and his spouse, Rama Duwaji, stroll out of a polling place throughout early major voting within the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, June 19, 2025. If her husband wins in November, Duwaji would maintain a place that has been sparsely crammed. (Shuran Huang/The New York Instances)
In June, after Mamdani surprised Andrew Cuomo by beating him within the Democratic major, Duwaji was onstage beside her husband throughout his victory speech, smiling in a boatneck gown and a “Zohran NYC” pin. Within the days after his victory, Duwaji gained greater than 100,000 new followers on Instagram, a lot of whom commented that they had been intrigued by her “cool” model and inventive endeavors.
“She’s our modern-day Princess Diana,” mentioned Hasnain Bhatti, 32, a photographer and a pal.
She has declined all press requests for the reason that major — together with one for an interview for this text, explaining that the eye is new to her — as her husband pushes towards the overall election. Mamdani’s marketing campaign declined to touch upon her resolution to not take part in public election-related occasions or on what her function could be ought to Mamdani win.
A number of of her shut associates describe this second for her as thrilling however overwhelming, and really removed from what she imagined she could be caught up in when she moved to New York Metropolis in 2021.
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Duwaji does communicate publicly on her personal on-line platforms. In August, after Israeli strikes killed Anas al-Sharif, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in Gaza who was 28, she posted an animation on Instagram of a metallic chain encircling a citation: “I urge you to not let chains silence you or borders maintain you again,” flashing to a Palestinian flag with the phrases “finish the genocide.”
“I imagine everybody has a accountability to talk out in opposition to injustice, and artwork has such a capability to unfold it,” Duwaji mentioned in an interview in April with Yung, {a magazine} based mostly within the Center East and Africa. Lots of her designs categorical concern for humanitarian crises in Gaza, Sudan and Lebanon, and painting intimate scenes of Center Jap life.
As his spouse, Rama Duwaji, appears to be like on, State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a candidate for mayor of New York Metropolis, speaks to reporters earlier than casting his poll in early major voting within the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, June 19, 2025. Rama Duwaji moved to New York to pursue a profession in artwork, met a man named Zohran Mamdani on-line, and now might grow to be the cityÕs first girl earlier than her thirtieth birthday. (Shuran Huang/The New York Instances)
However to this point, she has not participated within the sort of marketing campaign actions that the spouses of candidates usually do, maintaining herself out of the normal political highlight throughout her husband’s sudden ascent. She attends artwork occasions and leads ceramics workshops across the metropolis. Of the various questions she could must reply if Mamdani prevails subsequent month, the most important one might be: Can she hold that up?
Chirlane McCray, the latest first girl of New York Metropolis, had been married to Invoice de Blasio for twenty years when he was first elected mayor. McCray, who can also be an artist, served as town’s first girl for eight years. (She and de Blasio introduced their separation in 2023.)
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She has not met Duwaji, however she mentioned that whereas there have been expectations and obligations that got here with the function, “occasions have modified.”
“I feel that there’s extra acceptance now {that a} partner can outline their degree of visibility,” McCray mentioned.
From Texas to Dubai to NYC
Rising up, Duwaji incessantly bought in hassle at school for doodling in textbooks and notebooks. Born in Houston, Duwaji, who’s of Syrian descent, moved to Dubai when she was about 9. Drawing, she has instructed interviewers through the years, was her solace.
“Time goes by actually shortly after I draw,” she mentioned in a podcast interview in 2020.
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Her father, a software program developer, and her mom, a health care provider, had been supportive of her love of artwork, although in addition they inspired her to be sensible when it got here to selecting a profession. Throughout her previous couple of months in highschool in Dubai, she determined to pursue artwork as a profession.
She selected to attend Virginia Commonwealth College Faculty of the Arts in Qatar for her freshman yr of faculty. Duwaji moved to Richmond, Virginia, the primary VCU campus, to finish her undergraduate research.
There, she realized the methods through which, as a Syrian, she didn’t “slot in as nicely,” she mentioned on a podcast in 2019. “I began making work about identification, what it means to be Syrian overseas and sort of simply delved into these subjects that meant so much to me,” she mentioned.
She graduated in 2019 with a bachelor’s diploma in communication arts. After that, she lived along with her household in Dubai and took part in numerous artist residencies, together with in Beirut and Paris.
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When she moved to New York in 2021 to pursue a profession as an artist, she quickly developed a relationship with Mamdani, whose associates have shared that he was “so giddy” about her and that Duwaji naturally match into their group. A number of associates of his confessed to liking her greater than they appreciated Mamdani.
As soon as a Brooklyn resident, she and Mamdani now reside in Astoria, Queens, close to Steinway Avenue, a scorching spot for Arab delicacies and tradition the place hookah outlets and eating places line the block.
In conversations with half a dozen individuals who know Duwaji from the close-knit worlds of Muslim American artists and creators in New York, her associates painted an image of a comparatively new New Yorker who nonetheless at all times manages to know what gallery reveals in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to go to or the place to get one of the best shawarma.
Rama Duwaji, carrying boots within the entrance row, on the Diotima Spring 2026 assortment present in New York in September 2026. Duwaji moved to New York to pursue a profession in artwork, met a man named Zohran Mamdani on-line, and now might grow to be the cityÕs first girl earlier than her thirtieth birthday. (Simbarashe Cha/The New York Instances)
Her favourite? Al-Sham Restaurant in Bay Ridge.
‘Her Personal Line’
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In a piece of animation, a pair of palms massages kale, chops pecans and peels a carrot. It’s narrated by a girl reminiscing about rising up in Egypt and observing how expressive the ladies in her household had been with their palms after they cooked.
It’s a part of a mixed-media mission referred to as “Sahtain!” — an Arabic expression much like “bon appétit” — which was Duwaji’s grasp’s thesis, in regards to the communal act of creating and sharing a dish.
In 2024, Duwaji graduated from the Faculty of Visible Arts in New York with a grasp of wonderful arts in illustration as visible essay. Riccardo Vecchio, the chair of Duwaji’s grasp’s program who additionally taught her in Portray II, remembered his former scholar as “very targeted on her work.”
On Oct. 21, 2024, Mamdani posted a photograph of Duwaji, smiling, on Instagram, with the caption “Mild of my life,” a hoop emoji and the hashtag #hardlaunch. Two days later, he started his mayoral marketing campaign.
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His new fiancee was largely capable of proceed to make artwork in privateness in the course of the early days of the marketing campaign, however within the spring, some critics raised questions on whether or not he was “hiding” her.
In response, Mamdani posted extra images of Duwaji on Instagram, this time exhibiting their courthouse marriage ceremony, together with the pair on the subway, with Duwaji in white with a classic coat, holding flowers, and each at Metropolis Corridor.
He shared that he and Duwaji had married in February, three months earlier than, and she or he was thrust into the general public eye. In July, the couple held a marriage celebration in Uganda, the place Mamdani was born. Some associates from New York made the journey to hitch the festivities. The one stipulation — no telephones.
The Homestretch of the Race
In August, whereas her husband continued to rack up small marketing campaign donations, Duwaji was within the Catskill Mountains, internet hosting a tile workshop that invited individuals to color a set of 4 ceramic tiles impressed by native Syrian flora.
On the retreat, Duwaji launched herself to Rowan Spencer, who wore a shirt depicting Irish and Palestinian solidarity. They spoke about their Irish and Syrian roots — Spencer’s household is from Cork, Eire, and Duwaji inspired him to take satisfaction in his heritage — and their “experiences rising up between the States and these homelands which have been torn up by struggle and battle,” he mentioned.
“She makes you are feeling actually comfy,” mentioned Spencer, a founding father of a pop-up restaurant referred to as Mon Petit Canard that offered the music and meals for the retreat.
If her husband wins in November, Duwaji would maintain a place that has been sparsely crammed prior to now 5 many years.
“We don’t actually have a historical past of first girls in modern-day New York,” Christina Greer, an affiliate professor of political science at Fordham College. Michael Bloomberg and Edward Koch, who each served for 12 years, had been single, as is Eric Adams.
If Duwaji finds herself as town’s first girl, simply 4 years after transferring to New York as an aspiring artist, McCray believes she has a bonus.
“Luckily, her youth will give her extra power,” McCray mentioned. “Which is useful as a result of it’s the metropolis that by no means sleeps.”
