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Coming of age in London during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the Square Mile. They were worn by dads in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of gravitas, signaling authority and professionalism—qualities I was told to aspire to to become a "man". However, until recently, my generation seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had largely vanished from my mind.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an innovative campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. But whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing remained mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common 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. "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 locations: weddings, funerals, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a custom that has long retreated from everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it performs authority in the attempt of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a subtle form of drag, in that it performs manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. 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 picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and expensive, but its slim cut now feels passé. I suspect this sensation will be only too recognizable for numerous people in the diaspora whose families come from somewhere else, especially global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through trends; a particular cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: more relaxed 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 destined to be out of fashion within five years. Yet the appeal, at least in certain circles, endures: in the past year, department stores report suit sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an desire to invest in something special."

The Politics of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that retails in a moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the group most inclined to support him: people in their thirties and forties, university-educated earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits plausibly align with his stated policies—which include a capping rents, building affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that property development world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that elite, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's constituency."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "controversial" beige attire to other world leaders and their suspiciously impeccable, custom-fit appearance. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

The Act of Normality and Protective Armor

Maybe the point is what one academic calls the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive 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 apolitical; 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 from a minority background, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, particularly to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is not a recent phenomenon. Even iconic figures once wore three-piece suits during their formative years. These days, other world leaders have begun swapping their usual fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"Throughout the fabric of Mamdani's image, the struggle between insider and outsider is apparent."

The attire Mamdani chooses is highly symbolic. "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 marker of leadership," says one expert, while simultaneously needing to navigate carefully by "not looking like an elitist betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to assume different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between languages, customs and attire is common," commentators note. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam 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 built for me, be it an inherited tradition, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in politics, appearance is never without meaning.