🔗 Share this article

Growing up in the British capital during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. They adorned City financiers hurrying through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the golden light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of seriousness, projecting power and professionalism—qualities I was expected to aspire to to become a "man". However, until lately, my generation appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a private ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a music venue or appearing at a film premiere, one thing remained largely unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a cohort that seldom bothers to wear one.

"This garment is in this strange place," notes men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "It's been dying a gradual fade 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: marriages, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long retreated from everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has historically signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public confidence. As Guy clarifies: "Because we are also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a subtle form of drag, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese retailer several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and high-end, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I suspect this sensation will be all too recognizable for numerous people in the diaspora whose families come from other places, particularly global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of Richard Gere's 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. Yet the appeal, at least in certain circles, endures: recently, major retailers report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being daily attire towards an appetite to invest in something special."

The Politics of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that sells in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his background," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will appeal to the group most inclined to support him: people in their thirties and forties, university-educated earning professional incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits arguably align with his proposed policies—which include a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; 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 seamlessly with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "shocking" beige attire to other national figures 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 characterize them.

The Act of Banality and Protective Armor

Maybe the key is what one academic calls the "enactment of ordinariness", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's particular choice taps into a studied modesty, not too casual nor too flashy—"conforming to norms" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; scholars have long noted that its modern roots lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it 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 white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed historical leaders once donned formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their usual fatigues for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani chooses is deeply symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist selling out his distinctive roots and values."

Yet there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, 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," it is said. "Some individuals can go unnoticed," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must meticulously navigate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between belonging and displacement, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the awkwardness of trying to fit into something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make clear, however, is that in public life, appearance is not without meaning.