Interpreting the New York Mayor's Sartorial Statement: The Garment He Wears Tells Us Regarding Contemporary Masculinity and a Changing Culture.

Growing up in London during the 2000s, I was constantly surrounded by suits. You saw them on businessmen hurrying through the financial district. You could spot them on fathers in Hyde Park, kicking footballs in the evening light. At school, a cheap grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a costume of seriousness, projecting power and professionalism—traits I was told to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, before lately, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my mind.

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, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Riding high by an innovative campaign, he captivated the world's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. But whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing was largely unchanged: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically professional millennial suit—that is, as common as it can be for a generation that rarely chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird position," says style commentator Derek Guy. "It's been dying a slow death since the end of the Second World War," with the real dip arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: weddings, memorials, to some extent, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It is like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "fundamentally represents a tradition that has long ceded from everyday use." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has historically conveyed this, today it performs authority in the attempt of winning public trust. As Guy clarifies: "Since we're 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 enacts manliness, authority and even closeness to power.

Guy's words stayed with me. On the rare occasions I need a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Tokyo retailer several years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels outdated. I suspect this feeling will be only too recognizable for many of us in the global community whose families 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 trends; a specific cut can therefore define an era—and feel quickly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting 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 likely to be out of fashion within five years. But the appeal, at least in some quarters, endures: in the past year, department stores report tailoring sales increasing more than 20% as customers "move away 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 sells in a mid-market price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." Therefore, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the group most inclined to support him: people in their thirties and forties, university-educated earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Not cheap but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his stated policies—which include a rent freeze, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing this brand; he's a Brioni person," observes Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and grew up in that property development world. A status symbol fits seamlessly with that elite, just as more accessible brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is long and storied: from a former president's "controversial" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably polished, tailored sheen. As one British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to define them.

Performance of Normality and Protective Armor

Perhaps the key is what one academic calls the "performance of banality", invoking the suit's long career as a uniform of political power. Mamdani's specific selection leverages a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"conforming to norms" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's historical and imperial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; scholars have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in imperial administration." It is also seen as a form of protective armor: "I think if you're from a minority background, you might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, particularly to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is not a new phenomenon. Indeed historical leaders previously wore formal Western attire during their formative years. Currently, other world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear 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 suit Mamdani chooses is highly 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 expect as a sign of leadership," says one author, while at the same time needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an establishment figure selling out his non-mainstream roots and values."

Yet there is an sharp awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is interpreted from it. "This could stem 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 diverse background, where code-switching between languages, customs and attire is common," commentators note. "Some individuals can go unnoticed," but when others "attempt to gain the authority that suits represent," they must carefully navigate the expectations associated with them.

In every seam of Mamdani's public persona, the dynamic 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 society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's style decisions make evident, however, is that in politics, appearance is never without meaning.