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Coming of age in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on City financiers rushing through the Square Mile. You could spot them on fathers in Hyde Park, kicking footballs in the golden light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a uniform of seriousness, projecting authority and professionalism—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, until recently, people my age seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed 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 unlike any recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a music venue or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a generation that rarely bothers to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird position," notes men's fashion writer 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 rise of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the strictest settings: marriages, funerals, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy states. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long retreated from daily life." Numerous politicians "wear a suit to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for 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 relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a nuanced form of drag, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the infrequent times I need a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I dust off the one I bought from a Japanese department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I suspect this feeling will be only too familiar for numerous people in the global community whose parents come from other places, especially global south countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a particular cut can thus define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: more relaxed suits, echoing Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within five years. Yet the appeal, at least in some quarters, endures: recently, major retailers report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away 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 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 not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will resonate with the group most inclined to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often discontented 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 free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised 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 legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a well-known leader's "controversial" tan suit to other national figures and their notably polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

Performance of Banality and Protective Armor

Maybe the key is what one academic refers to the "performance of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an inconspicuous suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; scholars have long pointed out that its modern roots lie in imperial administration." It is also seen as a form of defensive shield: "I think 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 asserting legitimacy, perhaps especially to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously donned three-piece suits during their formative years. Currently, other world leaders have started 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 tension between insider and outsider is apparent."

The attire Mamdani selects is deeply significant. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," says one author, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an acute awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to adopt different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between languages, customs and clothing styles is common," it is said. "White males can go unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must meticulously negotiate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's public persona, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to conform to something not built for me, be it an cultural expectation, the culture I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in public life, appearance is not neutral.