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Growing up in London during the noughties, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned City financiers rushing through the financial district. They were worn by fathers in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the golden light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—qualities I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, before lately, my generation appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had all but disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the world's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely constant: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a generation that rarely bothers to wear one.

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

"It's basically only worn in the strictest settings: weddings, funerals, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it performs manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis resonated deeply. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a wedding 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 refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I imagine this sensation will be only too familiar for many of us in the global community whose families originate in somewhere else, especially developing countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through trends; a specific cut can therefore define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, major retailers report suit sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from Suitsupply, 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 mid-level suit will resonate with the group most likely to support him: people in their thirties and forties, college graduates earning middle-class 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 arguably don't contradict his proposed policies—which include a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; he's a Brioni person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that property development world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "controversial" tan suit to other world leaders and their suspiciously polished, custom-fit sheen. As one UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to define them.

Performance of Banality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the point is what one academic refers to the "enactment of banality", invoking the suit's historical role as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a deliberate understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. But, some think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; historians have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "It is argued that if you're a person of color, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is not a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously wore formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have started swapping their typical military wear for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani chooses is deeply symbolic. "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 expert, while simultaneously 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 suit-wearers and what is read into it. "That may come 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. "White males can go unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously negotiate 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 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 sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in public life, image is not neutral.