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Growing up in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned businessmen hurrying through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of gravitas, projecting power and professionalism—qualities I was expected to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, until lately, people my age appeared to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my consciousness.

Then came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. But whether he was cheering in a music venue or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was mostly constant: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a generation that rarely chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this strange position," says style commentator Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a slow death since the end of the Second World War," with the real dip arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the most formal settings: marriages, funerals, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a custom that has long retreated from everyday use." Numerous politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope 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." In many ways, a suit is just a nuanced form of drag, in that it performs manliness, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese retailer several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its slim cut now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be all too recognizable for many of us in the diaspora whose families originate in somewhere else, especially developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through trends; a specific cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting suits, echoing a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the cost, it can feel like a considerable investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, department stores report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that sells 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 exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will resonate with 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. Affordable but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—which include a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president 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 tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's constituency."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a well-known leader's "shocking" beige attire to other world leaders and their notably impeccable, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Banality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the key is what one scholar refers to the "performance of ordinariness", summoning the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a studied modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "It is argued that if you're from a minority background, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously donned three-piece suits during their formative years. Currently, other 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 public persona, the struggle between insider and outsider is apparent."

The suit Mamdani chooses is deeply symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to conform to what many American voters expect as a sign of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist selling out his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a millennial, able to adopt different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where code-switching between cultures, traditions and attire is typical," it is said. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when others "seek 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 tension between belonging and displacement, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to conform to 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 style decisions make evident, however, is that in public life, image is never without meaning.