Interpreting Zohran Mamdani's Sartorial Choice: The Garment He Wears Tells Us Regarding Modern Manhood and a Changing Society.

Growing up in London during the noughties, I was constantly surrounded by suits. You saw them on businessmen hurrying through the financial district. They were worn by dads in the city's great park, kicking footballs in the evening light. Even school, a cheap grey suit was our required uniform. Traditionally, the suit has functioned as a uniform of seriousness, signaling authority and professionalism—qualities I was expected to embrace to become a "adult". Yet, until recently, my generation seemed to wear them less and less, and they had all but vanished from my consciousness.

Subsequently came the incoming New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Taking his oath of office at a closed ceremony dressed in a subdued black overcoat, pristine white shirt, and a notable silk tie. Propelled by an ingenious campaign, he captured the public's imagination unlike any recent contender for city hall. Yet whether he was cheering in a hip-hop club or appearing at a film premiere, one thing was largely unchanged: he was almost always in a suit. Loosely tailored, contemporary with unstructured lines, yet conventional, his is a typically middle-class millennial suit—that is, as typical as it can be for a cohort that rarely chooses to wear one.

"This garment is in this weird position," notes men's fashion writer Derek Guy. "It's been dying a slow death since the end of the second world war," with the significant drop coming in the 1990s alongside "the rise of business casual."

"It's basically only worn in the most formal settings: marriages, memorials, and sometimes, legal proceedings," Guy explains. "It's sort of like the traditional Japanese robe in Japan," in that it "essentially represents a custom that has long retreated from daily life." Many politicians "don this attire to say: 'I am a politician, you can trust me. You should support me. I have legitimacy.'" Although the suit has traditionally conveyed this, today it enacts authority in the hope of winning public trust. As Guy clarifies: "Because we are also living in a democratic society, politicians want to seem relatable, 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 masculinity, authority and even closeness to power.

This analysis stayed with me. On the infrequent times I require a suit—for a wedding or black-tie event—I dust off the one I bought from a Japanese department store several years ago. When I first selected it, it made me feel refined and expensive, but its slim cut now feels passé. I suspect this feeling will be all too recognizable for many of us in the global community whose parents come from somewhere else, particularly developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the working man's suit has lost fashion. Similar to a pair of jeans, a suit's silhouette goes through trends; a specific cut can thus characterize an era—and feel rapidly outdated. Consider the present: looser-fitting suits, echoing Richard Gere's Armani in *American Gigolo*, might be trendy, but given the price, it can feel like a significant investment for something likely to fall out of fashion within a few seasons. Yet the attraction, at least in some quarters, 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 Suitsupply, a European label that retails in a mid-market price bracket. "Mamdani is very much a reflection of his upbringing," says Guy. "A relatively young person, he's not poor but not exceptionally wealthy." To that end, his mid-level suit will appeal to the group most likely to support him: people in their 30s and 40s, university-educated earning professional incomes, often frustrated by the cost of housing. It's exactly the kind of suit they might wear themselves. Affordable but not lavish, Mamdani's suits plausibly don't contradict his proposed policies—such as a capping rents, constructing affordable homes, and free public buses.

"You could never imagine Donald Trump wearing this brand; he's a luxury Italian suit person," observes Guy. "As an immensely wealthy and was raised in that New York real-estate world. A power suit fits naturally with that tycoon class, just as more accessible brands fit naturally with Mamdani's cohort."

The history of suits in politics is extensive and rich: from a former president's "shocking" tan suit to other national figures and their notably polished, custom-fit appearance. Like a certain British politician discovered, the suit doesn't just dress the politician; it has the potential to define them.

Performance of Banality and A Shield

Perhaps the point is what one scholar refers to the "enactment of ordinariness", invoking the suit's long career as a standard attire of political power. Mamdani's specific selection taps into a deliberate modesty, neither shabby nor showy—"respectability politics" in an unobtrusive suit—to help him connect with as many voters as possible. But, experts think Mamdani would be cognizant of the suit's military and colonial legacy: "This attire isn't apolitical; historians have long noted that its contemporary origins lie in imperial administration." It is also seen as a form of protective armor: "It is argued that if you're from a minority background, you might not get taken as seriously in these white spaces." The suit becomes a way of signaling credibility, perhaps especially to those who might question it.

This kind of sartorial "changing styles" is not a new phenomenon. Even historical leaders previously donned formal Western attire during their formative years. These days, certain world leaders have started exchanging their usual military wear for a black suit, albeit one without the tie.

"In every seam and stitch of Mamdani's image, the struggle between insider and outsider is apparent."

The attire Mamdani selects is deeply symbolic. "As a Muslim child of immigrants of Indian descent and a progressive politician, he is under pressure to conform to what many American voters look for as a marker of leadership," notes one expert, while simultaneously needing to walk a tightrope by "avoiding the appearance of an elitist selling out his distinctive roots and values."

Yet 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 code-switching between languages, traditions and attire is common," it is said. "White males can remain unnoticed," but when others "attempt to gain the power that suits represent," they must meticulously negotiate the expectations associated with them.

Throughout the presentation of Mamdani's official image, the dynamic between somewhere and nowhere, inclusion and exclusion, is visible. I know well the awkwardness of trying to conform to 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 style decisions make clear, however, is that in politics, appearance is not without meaning.