🔗 Share this article

Coming of age in London during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen hurrying through the Square Mile. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the golden light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, signaling authority and performance—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "man". However, until recently, people my age seemed to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly constant: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a generation that seldom bothers to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird 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 real dip coming in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the strictest locations: marriages, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long retreated from daily life." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically conveyed this, today it performs authority in the attempt of winning public trust. As Guy elaborates: "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 closeness to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a ceremony or formal occasion—I dust off the one I bought from a Japanese department store a few years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be only too recognizable for many of us in the diaspora whose families come from other places, especially global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can therefore characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed suits, reminiscent of a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the cost, it can feel like a considerable investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within five years. But the attraction, at least in some quarters, persists: recently, department stores report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something special."

The Politics of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, his mid-level suit will appeal to 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 precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his stated policies—such as a capping rents, building affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A status symbol fits naturally with that elite, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "controversial" beige attire to other world leaders and their suspiciously polished, tailored sheen. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to define them.

The Act of Normality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the key is what one scholar calls the "enactment of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied understatement, not too casual nor too flashy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous 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 noted that its contemporary origins lie in imperial administration." It is also seen 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 signaling credibility, perhaps especially to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders once donned three-piece suits during their early years. These days, certain world leaders have begun swapping their typical fatigues for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani chooses is highly significant. "Being the son 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," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to adopt different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and attire is common," commentators note. "Some individuals can remain unnoticed," but when others "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between belonging and displacement, inclusion and exclusion, 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 society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make clear, however, is that in politics, image is not without meaning.