🔗 Share this article

Coming of age in London during the noughties, I was constantly immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the financial district. They were worn by fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the golden light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of seriousness, projecting power and performance—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, before recently, people my age appeared to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared 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, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. But whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, modern with soft shoulders, yet conventional, 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," notes style commentator Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a gradual fade since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop coming in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal locations: 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 everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" Although the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public confidence. 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 drag, in that it enacts manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis stayed with me. 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 picked it up, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I suspect this sensation will be all too familiar for numerous people in the diaspora whose parents come from other places, particularly global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through cycles; a particular 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 trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a significant investment for something destined to fall out of fashion within five years. But the appeal, at least in certain circles, endures: in the past year, department stores report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being daily attire towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that sells in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the group most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated 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 plausibly align with his stated policies—such as a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "controversial" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably impeccable, custom-fit sheen. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

Performance of Banality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one academic calls the "performance of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages 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: "This attire isn't neutral; historians 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 might not get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of asserting credibility, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Even iconic figures previously donned formal Western attire during their formative years. These days, other world leaders have begun swapping their usual military wear for a black suit, albeit one without 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. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure selling out his non-mainstream 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 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, customs and attire is typical," commentators note. "White males can remain unnoticed," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously negotiate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the tension 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 inherited tradition, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in politics, appearance is never without meaning.