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Growing up in London during the noughties, I was constantly surrounded by suits. You saw them on City financiers hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by fathers in Hyde Park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a uniform of gravitas, projecting power and performance—traits I was told to embrace to become a "man". Yet, until recently, my generation seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had all but vanished from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony wearing a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely bothers to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird place," notes style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying a gradual fade since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop arriving in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: marriages, funerals, and sometimes, court appearances," Guy states. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a custom that has long ceded from everyday use." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public trust. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're also living in a liberal democracy, 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 proximity to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a ceremony or formal occasion—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 familiar for numerous people in the diaspora whose families originate in somewhere else, particularly developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through cycles; a specific cut can therefore define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed suits, reminiscent of a famous cinematic Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a considerable investment for something likely to be out of fashion within a few seasons. But 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 Politics 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 product of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor extremely wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the group most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning professional incomes, often discontented by the cost 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 stated policies—which include a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; he's a Brioni person," says Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that property development world. A power suit fits seamlessly with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a former president's "controversial" beige attire to other national figures and their notably impeccable, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain British politician learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

Performance of Normality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the point is what one scholar refers to the "enactment of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's particular choice taps into a deliberate understatement, not too casual nor too flashy—"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 historical and imperial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; historians have long noted that its modern roots lie in imperial administration." It is also seen as a form of protective armor: "It is argued that if you're a person of color, you aren't going to get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is not a recent phenomenon. Even iconic figures once wore formal Western attire during their formative years. Currently, certain world leaders have begun exchanging their typical fatigues 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 visible."

The suit Mamdani selects is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a democratic socialist, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," says one author, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an elitist selling out his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an sharp awareness of the different rules applied to who wears suits and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a millennial, able to adopt different identities to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where code-switching between languages, customs and clothing styles is typical," commentators note. "White males can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "seek to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the codes associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the discomfort 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 style decisions make clear, however, is that in politics, image is never neutral.