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Growing up in the British capital during the noughties, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned City financiers rushing through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—qualities I was expected to embrace to become a "man". However, before lately, people my age seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely vanished from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing remained largely unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that seldom bothers to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird place," notes men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a gradual fade since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop arriving in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal 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 ceded from everyday use." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it performs authority in the hope of gaining public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are 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 nuanced form of performance, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I dust off the one I bought from a Japanese department store a few years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be all too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose families come from somewhere else, especially global south countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has lost fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a particular cut can thus define an era—and feel quickly 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 destined to fall out of fashion within five years. But the attraction, at least in some quarters, persists: recently, department stores report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that sells 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 exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the demographic most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated 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—such as a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a Brioni person," observes Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that elite, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

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, tailored sheen. As one British politician learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

The Act of Banality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one scholar calls the "performance of banality", summoning the suit's historical role as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's particular choice 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, 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 modern roots lie in imperial administration." It is also seen as a form of defensive shield: "I think if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed historical leaders previously donned three-piece suits during their formative years. Currently, other world leaders have started swapping their typical fatigues for a black suit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The attire Mamdani selects is deeply significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure selling out his distinctive 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 adopt different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between cultures, traditions and attire is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unremarked," but when others "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must meticulously negotiate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic between belonging and displacement, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to fit into something not designed with me in mind, be it an inherited tradition, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make evident, however, is that in politics, image is never without meaning.