Interpreting the New York Mayor's Style Choice: The Garment He Wears Reveals About Modern Manhood and a Shifting Culture.

Growing up in the British capital during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. They adorned City financiers rushing through the Square Mile. You could spot them on dads in Hyde Park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our required uniform. Historically, the suit has served as a uniform of seriousness, projecting authority and professionalism—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, until lately, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had largely disappeared from my consciousness.

Then came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captured the public's imagination like no other recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was cheering in a music venue or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely constant: 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 cohort that seldom bothers to wear one.

"This garment is in this strange position," notes men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "Its decline has been 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."

"Today it is only worn in the most formal settings: marriages, memorials, and sometimes, court appearances," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a custom that has long ceded from everyday use." 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 historically conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "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 nuanced form of performance, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel sophisticated and expensive, but its slim cut now feels outdated. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for numerous people in the diaspora whose parents come from other places, particularly developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through trends; a specific cut can therefore characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: more relaxed suits, echoing Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be in vogue, but given the cost, it can feel like a considerable investment for something destined to fall out of fashion within five years. But the appeal, at least in certain circles, persists: recently, department stores report suit sales rising more than 20% as customers "shift from the suit being daily attire towards an desire to invest in something special."

The Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from a contemporary brand, a European label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a reflection of his background," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the group most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning middle-class incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not lavish, Mamdani's suits arguably 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 Brioni person," says Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as attainable brands fit well with Mamdani's constituency."

The history of suits in politics is long and storied: from a well-known leader's "controversial" beige attire to other national figures and their suspiciously impeccable, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain UK leader discovered, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

The Act of Banality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the key is what one academic calls the "enactment of ordinariness", summoning 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 unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't neutral; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins 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 aren't going to get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed historical leaders previously wore three-piece suits during their early years. These days, certain world leaders have started swapping their usual fatigues for a black suit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"Throughout the fabric of Mamdani's image, the tension between belonging and otherness is visible."

The attire Mamdani chooses is highly symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under scrutiny to conform to what many American voters expect as a sign of leadership," notes one author, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "not looking like an establishment figure 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 read into it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, skilled to assume different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between cultures, customs and clothing styles is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unremarked," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the tension between belonging and displacement, inclusion and exclusion, is visible. I know well the discomfort of trying to fit into something not designed with me in mind, 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 politics, appearance is never neutral.