Interpreting the New York Mayor's Style Statement: What His Suit Tells Us Regarding Contemporary Masculinity and a Changing Society.

Growing up in London during the 2000s, I was always surrounded by suits. You saw them on City financiers hurrying through the Square Mile. They were worn by fathers in Hyde Park, playing with footballs in the evening light. At school, a inexpensive grey suit was our mandatory uniform. Traditionally, the suit has served as a costume of gravitas, projecting authority and performance—traits I was told to embrace to become a "man". However, before lately, people my age appeared to wear them infrequently, and they had all but vanished from my consciousness.

Then came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He was sworn in at a private ceremony dressed in a sober black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Riding high by an ingenious campaign, he captivated the public's imagination unlike any recent mayoral candidate. Yet whether he was celebrating in a hip-hop club or attending a film premiere, one thing remained mostly constant: he was frequently in a suit. Loosely tailored, modern with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a quintessentially middle-class millennial suit—well, as common as it can be for a generation that seldom chooses to wear one.

"The suit is in this weird place," says style commentator Derek Guy. "Its decline has been a gradual fade 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 strictest locations: weddings, funerals, to some extent, court appearances," Guy explains. "It is like the kimono in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a tradition that has long retreated from daily life." Numerous politicians "don this attire to say: 'I represent a politician, you can have faith in me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" But while the suit has traditionally signaled this, today it enacts authority in the attempt of winning public confidence. As Guy elaborates: "Since we're also living in a liberal democracy, 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 proximity to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the rare occasions I require a suit—for a ceremony or formal occasion—I retrieve the one I bought from a Japanese retailer a few years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its tailored fit now feels passé. I imagine this feeling will be all too recognizable for numerous people in the global community whose parents come from other places, particularly global south countries.

It's no surprise, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's shape goes through cycles; a specific cut can thus define an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Take now: looser-fitting suits, reminiscent of Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the cost, 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 some quarters, persists: recently, major retailers 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 Symbolism of a Mid-Market Suit

The mayor's go-to suit is from Suitsupply, a Dutch label that sells in a moderate price bracket. "He is precisely a product of his upbringing," says Guy. "In his thirties, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his moderately-priced suit will appeal to the demographic most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, college graduates earning middle-class incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's precisely the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his stated policies—such as 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. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that elite, just as attainable brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The legacy of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a well-known leader's "shocking" tan suit to other world leaders and their notably polished, custom-fit sheen. Like a certain UK leader learned, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the power to characterize them.

Performance of Banality and A Shield

Perhaps the key is what one academic calls the "enactment of banality", summoning the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a studied understatement, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. However, some think Mamdani would be aware of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't neutral; historians have long pointed out that its contemporary origins lie in military or colonial administration." Some also view it as a form of defensive shield: "It is argued that if you're a person of color, you might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of asserting legitimacy, particularly to those who might doubt it.

This kind of sartorial "code-switching" is hardly a recent phenomenon. Even historical leaders once wore three-piece suits during their early years. These days, other world leaders have started swapping their usual military wear for a dark formal outfit, albeit one lacking the tie.

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

The suit Mamdani selects is deeply significant. "Being the son of immigrants of Indian descent and a democratic socialist, he is under scrutiny to meet what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," notes one author, while at the same time needing to navigate carefully by "not looking like an establishment figure selling out his distinctive roots and values."

But there is an acute awareness of the different rules applied to who wears suits and what is interpreted from it. "That may come in part from Mamdani being a millennial, able to adopt different identities to fit the situation, but it may also be part of his multicultural background, where adapting between cultures, traditions and attire is typical," commentators note. "Some individuals can remain 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, inclusion and exclusion, is evident. I know well the discomfort of trying to fit into something not designed with me in mind, be it an inherited tradition, the society I was born into, or even a suit. What Mamdani's sartorial choices make clear, however, is that in public life, appearance is never without meaning.