🔗 Share this article

Growing up in London during the noughties, I was constantly surrounded by suits. You saw them on City financiers hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by dads in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a costume of seriousness, projecting power and performance—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, before lately, people my age appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a generation that rarely bothers to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird place," says men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "It's been dying 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."

"Today it is only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, memorials, and sometimes, court appearances," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long retreated from everyday use." Many politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I represent a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" Although the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're 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 enacts manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis resonated deeply. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I suspect this sensation will be all too familiar for numerous people in the diaspora whose families come from somewhere else, especially global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can therefore define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed suits, echoing a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the cost, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to be out of fashion within five years. But the appeal, at least in some quarters, endures: recently, department stores report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being daily attire towards an desire 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 moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the group most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning professional 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 arguably align with his proposed policies—which include a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; he's a Brioni person," observes Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a former president's "shocking" tan suit to other national figures and their suspiciously polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

Performance of Banality and A Shield

Perhaps the key is what one academic calls the "performance of ordinariness", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a deliberate understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; historians 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 "changing styles" is hardly a new phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures previously wore formal Western attire during their formative years. Currently, certain world leaders have started exchanging their typical fatigues for a dark formal outfit, albeit one without the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's image, the tension between insider and outsider is visible."

The attire Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," says one expert, while simultaneously needing to navigate carefully by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure selling out his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to assume different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and attire is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic between belonging and displacement, insider and outsider, is evident. I know well the discomfort 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 sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in public life, image is never neutral.