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Coming of age in the British capital during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the financial district. They were worn by fathers in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a costume of seriousness, signaling authority and performance—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "man". Yet, until lately, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my mind.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Propelled by an innovative campaign, he captivated the public's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. But whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird position," says 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 coming in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: marriages, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from everyday use." Many politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically signaled this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of gaining public trust. As Guy clarifies: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose parents come from somewhere else, particularly developing countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of 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 appeal, at least in some quarters, endures: recently, department stores report tailoring 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 Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from a contemporary brand, a European label that sells in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a product of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's neither poor nor exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the demographic most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning professional incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—such as a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a Brioni person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and grew up in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit naturally 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 impeccable, tailored appearance. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

The Act of Normality and Protective Armor

Maybe the point is what one scholar calls the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's particular choice leverages a deliberate understatement, not too casual nor too flashy—"conforming to norms" 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 historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; scholars have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of defensive shield: "I think if you're a person of color, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of asserting credibility, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "changing styles" is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures previously donned formal Western attire during their formative years. These days, certain world leaders have started exchanging their usual fatigues for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The attire Mamdani selects is highly significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters expect as a marker of leadership," says one expert, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist selling out his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an sharp awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "That may come 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 languages, traditions and clothing styles is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the discomfort of trying to fit into something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make clear, however, is that in politics, image is never without meaning.