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Growing up in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always immersed in a world of suits. They adorned City financiers rushing through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a costume of gravitas, signaling authority and performance—qualities I was told to aspire to to become a "man". Yet, before lately, people my age appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had all but disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony dressed in 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 mayoral candidate. But whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a cohort that rarely bothers to wear one.

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

"Today it is only worn in the strictest settings: weddings, funerals, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially 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 support me. I have authority.'" Although the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a democratic society, 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 enacts manliness, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a wedding or formal occasion—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo department store a few years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I imagine this sensation will be all too familiar for many of us in the global community whose parents come from other places, especially global south countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through trends; a particular cut can thus define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed 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 likely to be out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in some quarters, persists: recently, major retailers report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being daily attire towards an desire to invest in something special."

The Politics of a Mid-Market Suit

Mamdani's preferred 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." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will resonate with the group most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his proposed policies—such as a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to 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 naturally with that elite, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "controversial" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably impeccable, tailored sheen. As one British politician learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to define them.

The Act of Normality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one academic calls the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. But, some think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out 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 might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures once wore three-piece suits during their early years. These days, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their typical military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters look for as a marker 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 sharp awareness of the double standards applied to who wears suits and what is read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to adopt different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where code-switching between cultures, customs and clothing styles is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the codes associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's official image, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the awkwardness of trying to conform to something not designed with me in mind, be it an cultural expectation, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in politics, image is never neutral.