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Growing up in London during the noughties, I was constantly surrounded by suits. You saw them on businessmen hurrying through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in Hyde Park, kicking footballs in the golden light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—traits I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, before lately, people my age seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had largely vanished from my mind.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captured the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with soft shoulders, yet traditional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a generation that seldom bothers to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange position," notes style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying 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, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long retreated from daily life." Numerous politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should vote for me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of gaining public trust. As Guy clarifies: "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 subtle form of performance, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the infrequent times I need a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I dust off the one I bought from a Tokyo department store several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be all too recognizable for many of us in the global community whose parents originate in somewhere else, particularly developing countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a particular cut can therefore define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Take now: more relaxed 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 a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, major retailers report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from Suitsupply, a European label that sells in a moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's neither poor nor extremely wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will resonate with the demographic most likely to support him: people in their thirties and forties, college graduates earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—which include a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "shocking" beige attire to other world leaders and their notably polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain British politician learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

Performance of Banality and Protective Armor

Maybe the key is what one academic calls the "enactment of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's particular choice leverages a studied modesty, not too casual nor too flashy—"conforming to norms" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; historians have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in military or colonial administration." It is also seen as a form of defensive shield: "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, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures once donned three-piece suits during their early years. Currently, other world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani selects is deeply significant. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to conform to what many American voters expect as a marker of leadership," notes one author, while simultaneously needing to navigate carefully by "not looking like an elitist selling out 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, able 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 clothing styles is common," it is said. "Some individuals can remain unremarked," but when others "seek to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the discomfort 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 style decisions make clear, however, is that in public life, appearance is not neutral.