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Coming of age in London during the 2000s, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on City financiers hurrying through the financial district. You could spot them on dads in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a uniform of seriousness, projecting authority and performance—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, before lately, people my age seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was cheering in a music venue or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a generation that seldom chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this strange place," notes style commentator 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 strictest locations: marriages, funerals, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long ceded from everyday use." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has historically signaled this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of gaining public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're 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 drag, in that it enacts manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the infrequent times I need a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo department store a few years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for many of us in the global community whose parents come from other places, particularly global south countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed suits, echoing Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the cost, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. But the attraction, at least in some quarters, persists: recently, department stores report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being daily attire towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Mid-Market Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from Suitsupply, a Dutch label that retails in a moderate price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a product of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's neither poor nor exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will resonate with the group most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning professional incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed 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 Brioni person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and grew up in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that elite, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "controversial" beige attire to other world leaders and their notably polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain British politician learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to define them.

The Act of Normality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one scholar refers to the "enactment of banality", summoning the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's particular choice leverages a studied modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in imperial administration." Some also view it as a form of defensive shield: "I think if you're a person of color, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "changing styles" is not a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously wore formal Western attire during their formative years. Currently, certain world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between insider and outsider is apparent."

The suit Mamdani chooses is deeply significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters expect as a marker of leadership," notes one author, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "not looking like an establishment figure betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to who wears suits and what is read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to adopt different personas to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between cultures, customs and clothing styles is typical," it is said. "White males can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously navigate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the tension between belonging and displacement, insider and outsider, is evident. I know well the discomfort of trying to fit into something not designed with me in mind, be it an cultural expectation, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in politics, image is never without meaning.