🔗 Share this article

Growing up in the British capital during the noughties, I was constantly immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. Even school, a cheap grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a uniform of seriousness, projecting authority and performance—traits I was expected to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, until recently, people my age appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had largely disappeared from my mind.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed ceremony wearing a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, modern with unstructured lines, yet traditional, his is a quintessentially professional millennial suit—that is, as common as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange place," 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."

"Today it is only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, funerals, and sometimes, court appearances," Guy states. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a custom that has long ceded from daily life." Numerous politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I represent a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of gaining public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a subtle form of performance, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the infrequent times I need a suit—for a wedding or formal occasion—I dust off the one I bought from a Tokyo department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its slim cut now feels passé. I imagine this sensation will be only too familiar for many of us in the global community whose families come from other places, especially global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus define 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 price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something destined to be out of fashion within five years. But the attraction, at least in some quarters, endures: in the past year, major retailers report suit sales increasing more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's neither poor nor extremely wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the demographic most inclined to support him: people in their thirties and forties, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his stated policies—such as a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and grew up in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that elite, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "shocking" tan suit to other national figures and their suspiciously impeccable, custom-fit appearance. As one UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to define them.

The Act of Banality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one scholar calls the "enactment of ordinariness", invoking the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into 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 historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; scholars have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in imperial administration." Some also view it 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 white spaces." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a new phenomenon. Even iconic figures previously wore formal Western attire during their formative years. These days, other world leaders have begun exchanging their typical military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The attire Mamdani chooses is highly symbolic. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," notes one expert, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure selling out his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, skilled to adopt different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between languages, traditions and clothing styles is typical," it is said. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, 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 sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in politics, image is not without meaning.