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Growing up in London during the noughties, I was always surrounded by suits. You saw them on City financiers rushing through the Square Mile. They were worn by fathers in Hyde Park, kicking footballs in the golden light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of seriousness, signaling authority and performance—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, until lately, my generation appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a private ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an innovative campaign, he captivated the public's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly constant: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet traditional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a generation that rarely chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange position," says men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a gradual fade since the end of the Second World War," with the significant drop coming in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, funerals, and sometimes, court appearances," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from daily life." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am 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 gaining public confidence. As Guy clarifies: "Since we're also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

This analysis resonated deeply. 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 several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I suspect this sensation will be all too recognizable for numerous people in the global community whose families originate in somewhere else, especially developing countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something destined to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the appeal, at least in certain circles, persists: recently, major retailers report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred 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. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, his mid-level suit will resonate with the demographic most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning middle-class 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 arguably align with his proposed policies—which include a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's constituency."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a well-known leader's "shocking" beige attire to other national figures and their suspiciously polished, tailored sheen. Like a certain British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

Performance of Normality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the point is what one scholar calls the "performance of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's particular choice leverages a deliberate modesty, not too casual nor too flashy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; historians have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." It is also seen as a form of protective armor: "It is argued that if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, perhaps especially to those who might question it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a new phenomenon. Even iconic figures once donned formal Western attire during their early years. These days, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their usual fatigues for a black suit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani chooses is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a democratic socialist, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to who wears suits and what is interpreted from it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to assume different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between languages, customs and clothing styles is common," commentators note. "Some individuals can remain unnoticed," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's official image, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is visible. I know well the discomfort of trying to conform to something not built for me, be it an inherited tradition, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make clear, however, is that in public life, image is never without meaning.