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Growing up in the British capital during the noughties, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned businessmen hurrying through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a uniform of gravitas, signaling power and performance—qualities I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". However, until lately, my generation appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the world's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. But whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet traditional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—that is, as common 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. "Its decline has been a gradual fade since the end of the Second World War," with the significant drop arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "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 "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has historically conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the hope of gaining 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 drag, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the infrequent times 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 selected it, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I suspect this feeling will be only too familiar for numerous people in the global community whose parents originate in somewhere else, especially developing countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through cycles; a specific cut can therefore define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting 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 likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the appeal, at least in certain circles, endures: in the past year, department stores report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from Suitsupply, a Dutch label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his background," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor exceptionally 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 professional incomes, often discontented by the expense 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—which include 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 was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that elite, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's constituency."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "controversial" tan suit to other national figures and their suspiciously impeccable, tailored sheen. As one UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Normality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one scholar calls the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's historical role as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's particular choice leverages a deliberate modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; historians have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of defensive shield: "It is argued that if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of asserting credibility, perhaps especially to those who might question it.

Such sartorial "changing styles" is not a new phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures once wore three-piece suits during their formative years. Currently, certain 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 tension between insider and outsider is visible."

The suit Mamdani chooses is deeply symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist betraying his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to who wears suits and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, skilled to assume different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between languages, traditions and clothing styles is common," it is said. "White males can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the dynamic between belonging and displacement, inclusion and exclusion, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to fit into something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in politics, image is not without meaning.