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Growing up in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a uniform of seriousness, projecting power and performance—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, before recently, people my age appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing remained largely constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, modern with soft shoulders, yet traditional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a generation that rarely bothers to wear one.

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

"It's basically only worn in the strictest settings: weddings, memorials, to some extent, court appearances," Guy states. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a tradition that has long retreated from everyday use." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has historically signaled this, today it performs authority in the hope of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a nuanced form of drag, in that it enacts 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 black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its slim cut now feels passé. I suspect this feeling will be only too recognizable for numerous people in the global community whose families come from other places, especially developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like 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 price, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to be out of fashion within five years. But 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 everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from a contemporary brand, a European label that retails in a moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the demographic most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his proposed policies—which include a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A status symbol fits naturally with that tycoon class, 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" beige attire to other national figures and their suspiciously polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain British politician learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Banality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one scholar calls the "performance of banality", 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 inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. But, experts think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't apolitical; scholars have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in imperial administration." It is also seen as a form of protective armor: "It is argued that if you're from a minority background, you might not get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is not a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously donned formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, other world leaders have begun swapping their typical fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"Throughout the fabric of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between belonging and otherness is visible."

The suit Mamdani chooses is deeply significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a democratic socialist, he is under pressure to conform to what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," says one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist betraying his distinctive roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to who wears suits and what is read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to assume different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between languages, traditions and attire is typical," commentators note. "White males can go unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the codes associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the discomfort of trying to conform to something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in politics, image is never without meaning.