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Coming of age in London during the noughties, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned businessmen rushing through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—traits I was expected to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, before recently, people my age appeared to wear them less and less, and they had largely vanished from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an innovative campaign, he captured the public's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was celebrating in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird position," notes 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 rise of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the strictest locations: weddings, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long ceded from daily life." Numerous politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has traditionally 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." In many ways, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it enacts manliness, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I suspect this sensation will be only too recognizable for many of us in the global community whose parents originate in somewhere else, especially developing countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through cycles; a particular cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: more relaxed suits, reminiscent of a famous cinematic 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 a few seasons. But the attraction, at least in some quarters, endures: in the past year, major retailers report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away 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 extremely wealthy." Therefore, his mid-level suit will appeal to the group 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 stated policies—such as a capping rents, building affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; 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 seamlessly with that elite, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's constituency."

The history of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a well-known leader's "shocking" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably impeccable, tailored sheen. As one UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

The Act of Normality and Protective Armor

Maybe the key is what one academic refers to the "performance of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied 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 pointed out that its modern roots lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of defensive shield: "I think if you're from a minority background, you might not get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might question it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures previously wore three-piece suits during their early years. Currently, other world leaders have started swapping their typical military wear for a black suit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani selects is highly significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to meet 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 selling out his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to assume different personas to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between languages, traditions and attire is common," it is said. "White males can go unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's official image, the tension between belonging and displacement, 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 culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in public life, image is never neutral.