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Coming of age in London during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. They adorned businessmen hurrying through the Square Mile. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of gravitas, signaling power and professionalism—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "adult". Yet, before recently, people my age appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had largely vanished from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the world's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet traditional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a generation that rarely bothers to wear one.

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

"Today it is only worn in the strictest locations: weddings, funerals, to some extent, court appearances," Guy explains. "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 "wear a suit to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it performs authority in the hope of gaining public trust. As Guy elaborates: "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 drag, in that it performs manliness, authority and even proximity to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a wedding or formal occasion—I dust off the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I suspect this feeling will be all too recognizable for many of us in the diaspora whose parents originate in other places, 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 particular cut can therefore characterize an era—and feel rapidly 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 significant investment for something destined to fall out of fashion within five years. Yet the appeal, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, major retailers report tailoring sales rising 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 a contemporary brand, a European label that sells in a moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor extremely wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will resonate with the group most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often discontented by the cost of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—such as a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a Brioni person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and was raised in that property development world. A status symbol fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit naturally with Mamdani's constituency."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a well-known leader's "controversial" beige attire to other national figures and their suspiciously impeccable, custom-fit sheen. As one British politician learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

The Act of Normality and Protective Armor

Maybe the key is what one scholar refers to the "performance of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't apolitical; scholars have long noted 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 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 "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders once donned formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, other world leaders have started exchanging their usual military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure selling out his distinctive roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to who wears suits 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 adapting between cultures, customs and attire is typical," it is said. "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 public persona, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to conform to something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in politics, image is never neutral.