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Growing up in the British capital during the noughties, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned City financiers hurrying through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the golden light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a uniform of seriousness, signaling authority and professionalism—traits I was expected to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, until recently, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Then came the newly elected 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. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing was largely constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird position," notes style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying a slow death since the end of the second world war," with the real dip coming in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the strictest settings: marriages, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It is like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long retreated from everyday use." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has historically conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public trust. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it enacts 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 retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese department store a few years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and expensive, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for many of us in the global community whose parents originate in somewhere else, especially developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through trends; a particular cut can thus define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the cost, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to be out of fashion within a few seasons. But the attraction, at least in some quarters, endures: in the past year, major retailers report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that retails in a moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the demographic most inclined to support him: people in their thirties and forties, university-educated earning middle-class incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his stated policies—which include a capping rents, constructing 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 property development world. A status symbol fits seamlessly with that elite, just as more accessible brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a former president's "shocking" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably polished, custom-fit sheen. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Normality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the point is what one academic refers to the "performance of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied modesty, not too casual nor too flashy—"conforming to norms" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. But, some think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't neutral; historians have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in imperial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "I think if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might question it.

Such sartorial "changing styles" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures previously wore three-piece suits during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their usual military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"In every seam and stitch 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 pressure to meet what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to assume different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between cultures, traditions and attire is common," it is said. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's official image, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the awkwardness of trying to fit into something not designed with me in mind, be it an inherited tradition, 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.