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Growing up in the British capital during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on City financiers hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by dads in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. Even school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a costume of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—traits I was told to aspire to to become a "man". Yet, before recently, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed ceremony wearing a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable 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 music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing was mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially professional millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this strange 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 coming in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the strictest locations: weddings, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a custom that has long ceded from everyday use." Many politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has historically signaled this, today it performs authority in the hope of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a subtle form of performance, in that it enacts masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo department store several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I suspect this feeling will be all too familiar for many of us in the diaspora whose parents come from other places, particularly global south countries.

Unsurprisingly, the everyday suit has lost fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus 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 considerable investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within five years. Yet the attraction, at least in certain circles, endures: recently, major retailers report suit sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being daily attire towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Politics of a Accessible Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that retails in a moderate price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a product of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, 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 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 capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and fare-free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A status symbol fits naturally with that elite, 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 "controversial" beige attire to other world leaders and their suspiciously polished, custom-fit appearance. As one UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the power to define them.

The Act of Banality and A Shield

Maybe the key is what one scholar refers to the "performance of banality", invoking the suit's historical role as a standard attire 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, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; scholars have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "I think if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of signaling legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is not a new phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures previously donned formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their usual military wear for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's public persona, the struggle between insider and outsider is visible."

The suit Mamdani selects is deeply significant. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters expect as a marker of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "not looking like an elitist selling out his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to who wears suits and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, skilled to assume different personas to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and clothing styles is typical," it is said. "White males can go unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "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, insider and outsider, is evident. I know well the awkwardness of trying to conform to something not designed with me in mind, be it an inherited tradition, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make clear, however, is that in public life, image is not neutral.