Rama Duwaji, Valentino, Willy Chavarria, Prada: Fashion as Political Gesture

Rama Duwaji, Syrian-American artist and illustrator, made her debut as New York's first Gen Z First Lady alongside newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani. She wore an embroidered top by Palestinian-Jordanian designer Zeid Hijazi inspired by Palestinian folklore and a black velvet skirt by Ulla Johnson, a look interpreted as an act of aesthetic activism and solidarity with Palestine. Born in Houston in 1997 to Syrian parents, raised between Dubai and New York, Duwaji uses her visual art and social media to explore migration, resilience, and self-determination of Middle Eastern women. Separately, Alessandro Michele's Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 collection 'Fireflies' was presented as an antifascist cultural manifesto, referencing Pier Paolo Pasolini's metaphor of fireflies resisting cultural homogenization and Georges Didi-Huberman's idea that 'five thousand fireflies are needed to make the light of one candle.' Willy Chavarria's Spring/Summer 2026 show in Paris featured men dressed in white kneeling in a circle, evoking images of detainees in ICE centers, transforming the runway into a ritual of memory and protest. At Milan Fashion Week, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented Prada's Fall/Winter 2025-2026 collection, described by Prada as reflecting 'a very black moment for the world.' The collection reinterpreted the little black dress with deconstructed cuts and visible seams, with Simons stating 'Liberating oneself is already an act of resistance.'