🔗 Share this article

Coming of age in London during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. You saw them on businessmen hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by fathers in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a uniform of seriousness, signaling power and performance—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, before lately, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my consciousness.

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. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the public's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending 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 typically professional millennial suit—that is, as common as it can be for a generation that rarely chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange place," notes 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 arriving in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the strictest locations: weddings, memorials, to some extent, court appearances," 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 represent a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of gaining public confidence. As Guy clarifies: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a subtle form of performance, in that it performs manliness, authority and even proximity to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the infrequent times I need a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I dust off the one I bought from a Japanese retailer several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose parents come from other places, particularly global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the everyday suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can therefore define an era—and feel rapidly 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 be out of fashion within five years. But the appeal, at least in some quarters, endures: recently, department stores report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that retails in a moderate price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the group most inclined to support him: people in their thirties and forties, college graduates earning professional incomes, often discontented 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 align with his proposed policies—such as a capping rents, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that tycoon class, 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 sheen. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

Performance of Banality and Protective Armor

Maybe 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 particular choice taps into a studied understatement, not too casual nor too flashy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. But, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in imperial 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 traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of asserting credibility, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

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

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

The suit Mamdani chooses is highly significant. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under pressure to conform to what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," says one author, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist betraying his distinctive 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 situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between languages, traditions and clothing styles is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek 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 belonging and displacement, insider and outsider, is evident. I know well the discomfort of trying to fit into something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in public life, appearance is not without meaning.