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Growing up in London during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. You saw them on City financiers rushing through the Square Mile. They were worn by dads in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. Even school, a cheap grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a uniform of seriousness, signaling power and professionalism—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". However, before recently, people my age seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had all but disappeared from my mind.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was largely unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet traditional, his is a quintessentially professional 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. "Its decline has been a slow death since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop coming in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the strictest settings: marriages, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from daily life." Many politicians "wear a suit 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 signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public trust. 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." To a large extent, a suit is just a nuanced form of drag, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words 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 high-end, but its slim cut now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose families come from somewhere else, particularly 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 thus characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Take now: more relaxed suits, echoing a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something destined to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in some quarters, endures: recently, department stores report suit sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being daily attire towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, 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, university-educated earning middle-class 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 plausibly don't contradict his stated policies—which include a capping rents, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; he's a Brioni person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and grew up in that New York real-estate world. A status symbol fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's constituency."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a former president's "controversial" beige attire to other national figures and their notably polished, 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 Banality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one scholar calls the "enactment of ordinariness", summoning the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a deliberate understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; historians have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "I think 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 legitimacy, particularly to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is not a new phenomenon. Even iconic figures once donned formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's public persona, the struggle between insider and outsider is visible."

The suit Mamdani selects is deeply symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," notes one expert, while simultaneously needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure betraying his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an acute 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 millennial, skilled to adopt different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where adapting between cultures, customs and clothing styles is common," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is evident. I know well the awkwardness 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 public life, image is never neutral.