🔗 Share this article

Coming of age in London during the 2000s, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a uniform of seriousness, signaling authority and performance—traits I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, before lately, my generation seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had largely vanished from my consciousness.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an innovative campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially professional millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a cohort that seldom bothers to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird place," says men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "It's been dying a gradual fade since the end of the Second World War," with the real dip coming in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the most formal locations: weddings, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the kimono in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a tradition that has long ceded from everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it performs authority in the hope of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a subtle form of drag, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a wedding or formal occasion—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 passé. I suspect this feeling will be only too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose parents originate in somewhere else, particularly global south countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a particular cut can thus define an era—and feel quickly 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 destined to fall out of fashion within five years. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, major retailers report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a Dutch label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will appeal to the group most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly align with his proposed policies—which include a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A status symbol fits seamlessly with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "shocking" beige attire to other national figures and their suspiciously impeccable, tailored appearance. As one UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to define them.

Performance of Banality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one scholar calls the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a deliberate modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. But, experts think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't apolitical; historians have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." It is also seen 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 signaling legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures once wore formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their typical fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's image, the struggle between insider and outsider is apparent."

The attire Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "Being the son of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters expect as a sign of leadership," notes one author, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope 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. "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 languages, traditions and attire is common," it is said. "White males can go unnoticed," but when others "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must meticulously navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's official image, the dynamic between belonging and displacement, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the discomfort of trying to fit into something not designed with me in mind, be it an cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in public life, image is not neutral.