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Coming of age in London during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned businessmen hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by dads in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, signaling authority and professionalism—traits I was expected to embrace to become a "adult". However, before recently, people my age seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office 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 public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly constant: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary 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 place," says style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying a slow death since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from everyday use." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope of gaining public confidence. As Guy clarifies: "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 performs masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I dust off 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 only too familiar for numerous people in the global community whose families come from other places, particularly developing countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a particular cut can therefore characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Take now: more relaxed suits, echoing a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the price, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within five years. But the attraction, at least in certain circles, endures: recently, department stores report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being daily attire towards an appetite to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Accessible Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a Dutch label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will appeal to the group most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—which include a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit 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 attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's constituency."

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

Performance of Normality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one scholar calls the "enactment of ordinariness", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's particular choice taps into a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an inconspicuous 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; historians have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in imperial administration." Some also view it as a form of defensive shield: "It is argued that 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 signaling credibility, particularly to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously wore three-piece suits during their formative years. Currently, other world leaders have started exchanging their usual fatigues for a black suit, albeit one without the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "Being the son of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters expect as a sign of leadership," says one author, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist betraying his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to adopt different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where code-switching between cultures, traditions and attire is typical," it is said. "White males can go unnoticed," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the authority 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 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 style decisions make evident, however, is that in public life, image is not without meaning.