What Zohran Mamdani's suit tells us about the man and the way society is changing

"Growing up in London in the 00s, I was surrounded by suits. On City boys darting around the Square Mile. In Hyde Park, where Arab dads in baggy suits kicked footballs with their children in honeyed light. At school, where cheap grey suits were our uniform. The suit has always been a costume of seriousness that signals powerfulness and performance; all the things I was apparently supposed to want if I ever intended to become a man."

"Then came the newly elected New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who was sworn in at a private ceremony dressed in a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt and an Eri silk tie from New Delhi-based designer Kartik Kumra of Kartik Research styled by US fashion editor, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson. Buoyed up by an ingenious campaign, he caught the imagination of the world like no other New York mayoral candidate of recent times."

"The suit is in this weird position, says men's fashion writer Derek Guy (AKA Twitter's the menswear guy) over the phone from California. It's been dying a slow death since the end of the second world war, with the real dip arriving in the 1990s with the rise of business casual. It's basically only worn in the most formal locations: weddings, funerals, to some extent, court appearances, Guy says. It's sort of like the kimono in Japan, in that it"

London in the 00s was full of suits: City boys in the Square Mile, Arab fathers in baggy suits in Hyde Park, and cheap grey school uniforms. The suit functioned as a costume of seriousness that signaled powerfulness, performance and expectations of manhood. A generation largely stopped wearing suits, yet newly elected New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani frequently wore loosely tailored, modern but conventional suits during his campaign and at events, including a sober black overcoat, crisp white shirt and an Eri silk tie. Men's fashion writer Derek Guy observes the suit has been declining since the second world war, with a sharper dip in the 1990s due to business casual, leaving suits mostly for formal occasions such as weddings, funerals and some court appearances.

Read at www.theguardian.com