Lefty former Vogue editor and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson downgraded her first-class seat — which was surrounded by “white middle-aged men” on a trip to Milan — because of “micro-aggressions” she faced from a male flight attendant.
Karefa-Johnson, 34, revealed on her social media Tuesday that her decision to sit in business class instead was prompted by the flight attendant’s behavior, which she did not describe in detail.
“I just downgraded myself from first class to business class on my flight to Milan. In a cabin of 6, 5 of the passengers were white middle aged men… then there was me, a 30 something black woman who travels in that cabin often,” she posted on Threads.
Gabriella Karefa-Johnson downgraded herself to business class because of a male flight attendant’s behavior. Getty Images
Karefa-Johnson styled both Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji at his inauguration in January. OLGA FEDOROVA/EPA/ShutterstockShe added there was “a male flight attendant who thought I’d be okay with substandard service and persistent micro-aggression from the moment I sat down. He was… wrong.”
Karefa-Johnson did not say exactly what the micro-aggression was, but she complained she had to “sacrifice physical comfort” by moving to still-spacious business class “to protect my emotional and mental well-being.”
It’s not clear which airline Karefa-Johnson flew with, but only Emirates and American Airlines offer direct flights from JFK Airport to Milan with both first and business-class cabins, the Daily Mail reported.
Her followers urged her toc omplain to the airline.
“Oh I absolutely will … The pilot and purser both came back to business to apologize,” she said. “Maybe the attendant was just having a bad day but it feels so gross.”
Karefa-Johnson, who in 2021 became the first black woman to style a Vogue cover, left the magazine in 2023 after unleashing a rant days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel — in which she likened the Jewish state to an “apartheid state” committing “genocide.”
An airplane seat onboard of Emirates Airlines Business Class in Airbus A380 airliner. Photofex – stock.adobe.com“I cannot believe that the world is watching in silence as a GENOCIDE — a mass Palestinian extinction plan — is happening before our very eyes,” the journalist wrote at the time, and called the IDF a “torture agency.”
She fumed about her departure from the magazine last year, saying, “Working in a place where this kind of vitriolic white supremacy goes unchecked is untenable.”
The Brooklyn-based celebrity stylist dressed New York City’s new socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji for inauguration day in January.
She said she was forced to move her seat to protect her mental well-being. Threads Gabriella/Karefa-Johnson“This look is honest. Real. Regal in the punkest way,” she wrote on her Substack in January of Hizzoner and his wife’s outfits.
While she served as an editor-at-large for Vogue, Karefa-Johnson also got into a spat with rapper Kanye West in 2022 after she criticized the “White Lives Matter” T-shirts that he included in his Yeezy fashion show — calling them “deeply offensive, violent and dangerous.”
West responded by mocking Karefa-Johnson’s sense of style, posting a photo of her with the caption, “This is not a fashion person.” He later deleted the post.
