Interpreting the New York Mayor's Sartorial Statement: What His Suit Tells Us Regarding Modern Manhood and a Shifting Culture.

Coming of age in London during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. You saw them on businessmen rushing through the Square Mile. You could spot them on fathers in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Historically, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, projecting authority and professionalism—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "man". Yet, until lately, people my age seemed to wear them infrequently, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

Subsequently came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a closed ceremony wearing a sober 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 mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—that is, as common as it can be for a generation that seldom chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this strange place," notes men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a slow death since the end of the second world war," with the real dip coming in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long retreated 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.'" But while the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public trust. As Guy elaborates: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem relatable, because they're trying to get your votes." In many ways, a suit is just a subtle form of drag, in that it performs masculinity, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer a few years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its slim cut now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be only too familiar for numerous people in the global community whose families come from somewhere else, particularly developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through trends; a particular cut can therefore define an era—and feel quickly 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 likely to fall out of fashion within five years. But the attraction, at least in certain circles, persists: in the past year, department stores report tailoring sales rising more than 20% as customers "move away from the suit being everyday wear towards an appetite to invest in something exceptional."

The Symbolism 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 reflection of his background," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's neither poor nor exceptionally wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the demographic most likely to support him: people in their thirties and forties, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not extravagant, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—such as a rent freeze, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"It's impossible to 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 seamlessly with that elite, just as attainable brands fit naturally 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 world leaders and their notably polished, tailored sheen. Like a certain British politician learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to characterize them.

The Act of Banality and Protective Armor

Maybe the point is what one scholar calls the "performance of ordinariness", summoning the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's particular choice taps into a deliberate understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; scholars have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in imperial 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 white spaces." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is not a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously wore formal Western attire during their early years. Currently, other world leaders have begun exchanging their typical military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"Throughout the fabric of Mamdani's public persona, the struggle between insider and outsider is apparent."

The attire Mamdani chooses is highly symbolic. "Being the son of immigrants of South Asian heritage and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to meet what many American voters expect as a marker of leadership," says one expert, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure betraying his non-mainstream roots and values."

But there is an acute 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 younger leader, skilled to assume different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his diverse background, where adapting between languages, traditions and clothing styles is typical," it is said. "Some individuals can go unnoticed," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully negotiate the codes associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the tension between somewhere and nowhere, insider and outsider, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to fit into 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 sartorial choices make evident, however, is that in public life, image is not without meaning.