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Coming of age in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned businessmen rushing through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a costume of seriousness, signaling authority and professionalism—qualities I was expected to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, before lately, people my age appeared to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. But whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet traditional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird position," notes men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a slow death since the end of the Second World War," with the significant drop coming in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: marriages, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long ceded from daily life." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of winning public confidence. As Guy clarifies: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a subtle form of performance, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis resonated deeply. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a wedding or formal occasion—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer a few years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I suspect this feeling will be all too familiar for numerous people in the global community whose parents originate in somewhere else, particularly global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through trends; a particular cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting suits, echoing Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, endures: recently, major retailers report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's neither poor nor exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, his mid-level suit will resonate with the demographic most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his stated policies—such as a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that elite, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's constituency."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "shocking" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

Performance of Normality and Protective Armor

Maybe the key is what one academic refers to the "performance of banality", invoking the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. But, some think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in imperial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "I think if you're a person of color, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling legitimacy, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a recent phenomenon. Even iconic figures once donned three-piece suits during their formative years. These days, other world leaders have started swapping their typical fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"Throughout the fabric of Mamdani's image, the struggle between belonging and otherness is apparent."

The attire Mamdani chooses is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters expect as a sign of leadership," says one author, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist selling out his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, skilled to adopt different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and attire is typical," commentators note. "White males can remain unnoticed," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is visible. I know well the discomfort of trying to conform to something not designed with me in mind, be it an inherited tradition, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in politics, appearance is not without meaning.