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Growing up in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned City financiers hurrying through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the golden light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of seriousness, projecting authority and professionalism—qualities I was expected to embrace to become a "man". Yet, until lately, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my mind.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an innovative campaign, he captured the public's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. But whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially professional millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a generation that seldom chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange place," says style commentator Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a slow death 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: marriages, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long retreated from everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has historically signaled this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning 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 subtle form of drag, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—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 refined and high-end, but its slim cut now feels passé. I suspect this feeling will be all too recognizable for numerous people in the diaspora whose families originate in other places, particularly developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through trends; a particular cut can thus define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting 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 destined to fall out of fashion within five years. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, major retailers report suit sales rising 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 a contemporary brand, a European label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will appeal to the demographic most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning professional incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits arguably don't contradict his proposed policies—which include a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a Brioni person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that property development world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "shocking" tan suit to other national figures and their suspiciously polished, tailored sheen. Like a certain UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

Performance of Banality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one scholar calls the "enactment of ordinariness", invoking the suit's historical role as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a deliberate modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" 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: "The suit isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in military or colonial administration." It is also seen as a form of defensive shield: "I think if you're from a minority background, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting credibility, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders once donned formal Western attire during their formative years. Currently, other world leaders have started exchanging their typical fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between belonging and otherness is visible."

The attire Mamdani selects is deeply significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters look for as a sign of leadership," says one author, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "not looking like an elitist betraying his distinctive roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a millennial, able to adopt different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and attire is common," it is said. "White males can remain unremarked," but when others "seek to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's official image, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is evident. I know well the awkwardness of trying to fit into something not built for me, be it an inherited tradition, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in politics, appearance is not neutral.