Interpreting the New York Mayor's Style Statement: The Garment He Wears Tells Us About Modern Manhood and a Shifting Society.

Coming of age in London during the noughties, I was always immersed in a world of suits. They adorned City financiers hurrying through the financial district. You could spot them on dads in the city's great park, playing with footballs in the golden light. Even school, a cheap grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a uniform of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—qualities I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, until 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 wearing a subdued black overcoat, crisp white shirt, and a distinctive silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination like no other recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely constant: he was frequently in a suit. Relaxed in fit, contemporary with soft shoulders, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as typical as it can be for a cohort that seldom chooses to wear one.

"This garment 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 arriving in the 1990s alongside "the advent of business casual."

"Today it is only worn in the strictest locations: weddings, memorials, to some extent, court appearances," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the kimono in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a tradition that has long retreated from daily life." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should vote for me. I have authority.'" But while the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it performs authority in the hope of gaining public confidence. As Guy clarifies: "Because we are also living in a liberal democracy, politicians want to seem approachable, because they're trying to get your votes." To a large extent, a suit is just a nuanced form of performance, in that it enacts manliness, authority and even proximity to power.

Guy's words resonated deeply. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a ceremony or black-tie event—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese retailer a few years ago. When I first picked it up, it made me feel sophisticated and high-end, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I suspect this feeling will be only too recognizable for many of us in the global community whose parents originate in other places, particularly developing countries.

It's no surprise, the everyday suit has fallen out of fashion. Like a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through trends; a specific cut can therefore characterize an era—and feel quickly outdated. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a significant investment for something destined to be out of fashion within five years. But the attraction, 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 Mid-Market Suit

Mamdani's preferred suit is from a contemporary brand, a Dutch label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a product of his background," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not extremely wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will resonate with the demographic most likely to support him: people in their thirties and forties, university-educated earning professional incomes, often discontented by the expense of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly align with his stated policies—which include a capping rents, building affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine a former president wearing Suitsupply; he's a luxury Italian suit person," says Guy. "He's extremely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A status symbol fits naturally with that elite, just as more accessible brands fit well with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a former president's "shocking" beige attire to other national figures and their suspiciously polished, tailored sheen. As one UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just clothe the politician; it has the potential to define them.

Performance of Banality and Protective Armor

Maybe the point is what one scholar refers to the "performance of banality", invoking 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 inconspicuous suit—to help him appeal to as many voters as possible. However, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "The suit isn't apolitical; historians have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of protective armor: "I think if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these traditional institutions." The suit becomes a way of signaling legitimacy, particularly to those who might doubt it.

Such sartorial "changing styles" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Indeed iconic figures once wore three-piece suits during their formative years. These days, certain world leaders have started exchanging their typical military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's image, the tension between belonging and otherness is apparent."

The suit Mamdani selects is deeply 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," notes 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 acute awareness of the double standards applied to suit-wearers and what is read into it. "This could stem in part from Mamdani being a younger leader, able to adopt different personas to fit the occasion, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and attire is common," it is said. "White males can remain unremarked," but when women and ethnic minorities "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must carefully 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 discomfort of trying to conform to 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 style decisions make evident, however, is that in public life, appearance is never without meaning.