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Growing up in London during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned City financiers rushing 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 functioned as a costume of seriousness, projecting authority and performance—qualities I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, until recently, people my age seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had largely vanished from my consciousness.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an innovative campaign, he captured the public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—that is, as common as it can be for a generation that seldom chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange place," says 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: marriages, funerals, to some extent, court appearances," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from daily life." Many politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public trust. As Guy clarifies: "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 subtle form of performance, in that it performs manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the infrequent times I need a suit—for a wedding or formal occasion—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and expensive, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be all too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose parents come from other places, particularly developing 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 particular cut can thus define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting suits, echoing Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something destined to be out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the appeal, at least in some quarters, endures: in the past year, major retailers report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being daily attire towards an desire to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from a contemporary brand, a European label that sells in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's neither poor nor extremely wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the demographic most likely to support him: people in their thirties and forties, college graduates earning professional incomes, often discontented by the cost of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his stated policies—which include a capping rents, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes 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 well with Mamdani's constituency."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "shocking" beige attire to other national figures and their notably impeccable, custom-fit sheen. As one UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

Performance of Normality and A Shield

Perhaps the key is what one scholar refers to the "performance of banality", invoking the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied modesty, not too casual nor too flashy—"respectability politics" 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 historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't apolitical; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins 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, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures previously wore formal Western attire during their early years. These days, other world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The attire Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem 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 code-switching between languages, traditions and clothing styles is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unnoticed," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must meticulously negotiate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is visible. I know well the awkwardness 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 sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in politics, appearance is never without meaning.