🔗 Share this article

Growing up in London during the 2000s, I was always immersed in a world of suits. They adorned businessmen hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by fathers in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the golden light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a costume of gravitas, signaling power and performance—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "man". However, before lately, people my age seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had largely disappeared from my mind.

Then came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony wearing a sober black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was cheering in a music venue or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, modern with soft shoulders, yet traditional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely bothers to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird place," says men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "It's been dying 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 most formal settings: weddings, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a tradition that has long retreated from daily life." Many 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 enacts authority in the attempt of winning public trust. 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." To a large extent, a suit is just a subtle form of performance, in that it performs manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a ceremony or formal occasion—I dust off the one I bought from a Tokyo department store a few years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel refined and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be all too familiar for many of us in the global community whose families come from somewhere else, particularly global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through trends; a specific cut can thus characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the price, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: recently, major retailers report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being daily attire towards an desire to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Accessible 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. "A relatively young person, 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, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his proposed policies—such as a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a Brioni person," says 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 long and storied: from a well-known leader'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 Banality and A Shield

Maybe the point is what one academic refers to the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a deliberate understatement, not too casual nor too flashy—"conforming to norms" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't apolitical; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." It is also seen 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 white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting credibility, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously donned formal Western attire during their formative years. Currently, certain world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The attire Mamdani chooses is deeply significant. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to conform to 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 distinctive roots and values."

But there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to adopt different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between languages, traditions and clothing styles is typical," it is said. "White males can go unnoticed," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the discomfort of trying to conform to something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make clear, however, is that in politics, appearance is never without meaning.