Mamdani Displays His Strongest Suit

“On Zohran Mamdani's 2006 yearbook page from Bank Street, a private K-through-8 school on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the eighth-grader included a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

 

Nearly two decades later, the 33-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America is the presumptive democratic nominee for New York City mayor. He did it in part by paying careful attention to what he wore -- almost always a dark suit with a white shirt and a slim patterned tie knotted tightly at the neck. The overall effect was sober professionalism, not radical chic. "Zohran's an activist, right? But we don't think of activists as people who can be politicians," said Thom Bettridge, editor in chief of the fashion magazine i-D. "The suit is kind of what makes him a politician."

 

Through the spring, a suited-up Mamdani seemed omnipresent in New York. In social-media videos, ads broadcast during Knicks games and out pressing the flesh in person, Mamdani sported a carefully groomed beard and tidy haircut, and stuck to his suits and ties -- decidedly not wearing the ballcap-and-band tee get-up popular with his fellow DSA members.

 

But Mamdani's suits aren't the blousy, boxy styles favored by most politicians. Instead, they're cut slimmer, befitting both his youth and antiestablishment message. The vibe accords with the image Mamdani established on social media during his campaign: that of the friendly neighborhood radical, your cool former co-worker who hits the bar after raising taxes on billionaires. Call it skinny-tie socialism.

 

To close observers, Mamdani's taste in tailoring speaks volumes. Derek Guy, the popular menswear commentator, said one of Mamdani's suits, a textured brown number with patch pockets, was J.Crew's popular Ludlow model. A wire photo of Mamdani with his jacket open revealed a label from Suitsupply, a brand popular with style-minded but budget-conscious young men. A few of the ties he wore during his campaign also matched options previously sold by J.Crew.

 

Their slim-but-not-too-skinny width called to mind the preppy styles made famous by the Kennedys -- an association, however subtle, designed to reassure voters scared off by Mamdani's lefty leanings. Their lengths, though, had more in common with President Trump's runaway neckwear than anything from Camelot. "He ties them really long," Guy noted. (Neither the Mamdani campaign nor J.Crew responded to requests for comment.)

 

Mamdani's approach to suiting, Guy explained, isn't exactly bleeding-edge: The candidate's preferred brands bear the slim silhouette of a slightly bygone era. "He dresses like a guy that would have been interested in clothes in, like, 2012," Guy said. Back then, a slim-cut suit was a novelty -- a radical shift from the baggy versions that defined the '80s and '90s. Today, it's the baseline for young professionals in need of something nice to wear to work. It also might get you laughed at by your zoomer colleagues. "He's probably read at least one GQ magazine," Guy said. "And it probably was in 2012."

 

Even if his personal style is stuck in the recent past, Mamdani isn't a cookie-cutter dresser. Guy highlighted another of Mamdani's suits, a darker number, as more likely a custom job -- the stitching along the lapels, to his eye, was done by hand. And a few of Mamdani's other stylistic touches -- black boots, even in the summer; silver rings on his right hand; a hipster Casio watch -- peg him as style-conscious, if not someone who spends hours trawling eBay for vintage accessories. "Someone who puts no thought into their dress would not have stumbled into a J.Crew Ludlow suit, would not have bought side-zip boots," Guy said. "But he also doesn't seem like he's a guy who's particularly obsessed about clothes."

 

For some industry observers, not trying too hard to look fashionable is a positive. "I don't want my politicians of any age trying to express themselves or their policies through clothing," said Chris Black, a consultant and podcast host in New York. Mamdani, Black said, "dresses like a person in their early 30s who actually goes to work every day. It's totally safe, appropriate and fits pretty well."

 

Still, even that is enough to separate Mamdani from his rivals. "I think he dresses better than many politicians his age," Guy said, and far differently from his challengers for the Democratic nomination, in their shiny suits and bright-colored ties. "Cuomo is very polished -- he just looks like a politician."” [1]

 

1. Mamdani Displays His Strongest Suit. Schube, Sam.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 01 July 2025: A9.