🔗 Share this article

Coming of age in the British capital during the 2000s, I was constantly immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the financial district. You could spot them on dads in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the golden light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, projecting power and professionalism—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "adult". However, until lately, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a sober black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely bothers to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange position," says style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying a slow death since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the strictest locations: weddings, funerals, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe 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 have faith in me. You should support me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has historically conveyed this, today it performs authority in the hope of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're 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 nuanced form of drag, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese 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 suspect this feeling will be all too recognizable for many of us in the global community whose parents come from other places, especially global south countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday 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. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, 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 appeal, at least in some quarters, persists: in the past year, major retailers report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a Dutch label that sells in a moderate 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 thirties and forties, university-educated earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly align with his proposed policies—which include a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and 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 attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

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 impeccable, custom-fit appearance. Like a certain British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Banality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one scholar refers to the "performance of banality", invoking the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's particular choice leverages a studied modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; scholars have long noted 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 from a minority background, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously wore three-piece suits during their formative years. Currently, certain world leaders have started swapping their typical military wear 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 suit Mamdani chooses is deeply significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a democratic socialist, he is under pressure to conform to what many American voters expect as a sign of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to assume different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where code-switching between cultures, customs and clothing styles is typical," it is said. "White males can go unnoticed," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously navigate the codes associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the awkwardness 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 public life, image is never without meaning.