🔗 Share this article

Coming of age in London during the 2000s, I was constantly surrounded by suits. They adorned businessmen hurrying through the Square Mile. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a costume of seriousness, projecting authority and performance—traits I was expected to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, before recently, people my age seemed to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Then came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Propelled by an innovative campaign, he captivated the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was celebrating in a music venue or appearing at a film premiere, one thing remained largely unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a generation that seldom chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird position," says style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying a slow death since the end of the Second World War," with the real dip arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the strictest settings: weddings, funerals, to some extent, court appearances," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long retreated from daily life." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of gaining public trust. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I dust off the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer a few years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I suspect this sensation will be only too familiar for numerous people in the global community whose families originate in somewhere else, especially global south countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed suits, echoing a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, 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 daily attire towards an desire to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from a contemporary brand, a European label that sells in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor extremely wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the group most likely to support him: people in their thirties and forties, university-educated earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the expense of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits plausibly align with his proposed policies—which include a capping rents, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; he's a Brioni person," says Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A status symbol fits seamlessly with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "shocking" tan suit to other world leaders and their suspiciously polished, tailored appearance. Like a certain UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Normality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one academic calls the "enactment of ordinariness", invoking the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. But, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "I think if you're from a minority background, 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 question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Even iconic figures once donned three-piece suits during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have started exchanging their typical fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The attire Mamdani chooses is deeply significant. "Being the son of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters expect as a marker of leadership," says 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."

But 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 millennial, able to assume different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between languages, customs and attire is typical," it is said. "Some individuals can go unremarked," but when others "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic 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 cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in politics, image is never without meaning.