In all the post-mortems that have appeared since Zohran Mamdani upset the political apple cart to potentially, if unofficially, clinch the Democratic nomination for New York mayor, one particular aspect of his appeal has been largely overlooked: not how Mr. Mamdani conducted his campaign but how he looked while conducting it.
Put another way: Mr. Mamdani didn’t just record himself for his various social media platforms running into the freezing Atlantic on New Year’s Day to publicize his pledge to freeze rents; he recorded himself running into the freezing ocean not in a wet suit or a bathing suit, but in a suit and tie.
Sure, it was funnier that way. But it was also tactical. For a 33-year-old progressive and democratic socialist trying to be the city’s first Muslim mayor, whose opponents are painting him as a “100 percent Communist lunatic” and a “radical leftie” (that from President Trump on Truth Social), not to mention trying to other him because of his racial and religious identity, dressing like an establishment guy offers a counterargument of its own.
As Mr. Mamdani walks the tightrope between embodying change, generational and otherwise, and reassuring those who may be leery of such change, his clothes have played a not insignificant role. His mouth may be saying one thing, but very often his outfit is saying another.
This is a man, after all, who appeared in Vogue India as long ago as 2020, when he won his seat in the State Assembly, and whose mother is the film director Mira Nair. He has long understood that costume is one way to convey character.
That is perhaps why his Instagram is chock-full of photos of him out and about on the campaign trail in a suit and tie. Of course, he wore a suit and tie for the debate, and, yes, he wore one to appear with Brad Lander on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” But he also wore one to his own victory party. He wore one on the subway. While eating at a variety of food carts. Campaigning on the streets of Queens and Manhattan and Brooklyn. Posing with cool kids like Ella Emhoff and Chi Ossé, neither of whom were wearing anything remotely similar.
Not for him the rumpled blue-shirt frumpiness of Bernie Sanders’s socialism (even if he did tell GQ that Mr. Sanders was one of his style icons). Not for him the three-quarter zips or hoodies of his peer group. Instead, he has embraced the immediately recognizable old school dress code of the job he is trying to get.
His white button-ups (and they are almost always white) are pristine. Even when he occasionally sheds his jacket, as he did in his walk from one end of Manhattan to the other, he generally kept the tie, and his shirtsleeves remained buttoned at the wrist — though he did trade his dress shoes for sneakers. When he took off the tie, he kept the shirt buttoned to the neck.
“There are many ways to convey formality,” he told GQ, “and it’s been exciting to explore every one of those avenues.” Formality? In the era of the casual everyday? How old is this guy?
When Mr. Mamdani has deviated from the norm, it was either to add the occasional crew-neck sweater, which made him look like nothing so much as a well-behaved schoolboy, or a black city puffer, which made him look like … well, every other young professional on a budget, especially when he also carried a backpack. Or to don a classic kurta, which he wore to Eid and to his wedding.
While Mr. Mamdani has made his faith and heritage part of his platform, he wore kurtas more often during his campaign for State Assembly than during his mayoral campaign, which likely reflects his awareness of the constituencies he is trying to woo.
It’s the details that keep the clothes from tipping into cosplay or, that damning word, “inauthenticity.” While Mr. Mamdani wears ties like the older generation, they are on the skinny side because he is part of the younger one. He wears an actual watch — a Casio — like an older person, but he also wears rings like a younger one: a band designed by his wife on his left hand and two on his right hand (one on his index finger and one on his ring finger).
And he has a beard, like many denizens of the manosphere, but his is more overtly groomed than those of the hunter-gatherer crowd — a kinder, gentler version of masculinity. He joked about his hair during a round-table chat for Interview magazine, noting in response to a question about Eric Adams and where he might be vulnerable to bribery. “It would be a hair transplant,” he said. (He did say he had committed to paying for his own.)
He is comfortable discussing sneakers and skinny jeans. Name-dropping Uniqlo, Nike and the suit guy on 30th Avenue. He knows nothing makes him cooler than the black-and-white snaps he posted of himself and his wife, the artist Rama Duwaji, taking the subway to City Hall to get married, with Mr. Mamdani in a white kurta and neatly tailored overcoat and Ms. Duwaji in a lace minidress with big leather boots and what looks like a vintage fur coat. (Well, aside from the fact they met on Hinge.) She’s got enough hip quotient for both of them.
Who can’t relate to at least one part of it?
All of which is only going to matter more as Mr. Mamdani heads into the general election. The G.O.P. is already pushing the idea of the candidate as “the new face of the Democratic Party,” as if his mere appearance is a threat. Perhaps it is. As Mr. Lander said when he and Mr. Mamdani were on “Colbert,” Mr. Mamdani may have been “the best-looking guy on the show.”
It seemed like a joke, except that given Mr. Trump’s well-documented interest in how men look, Mr. Lander’s comment may have been more pointed than it seemed. In fact, it seems as if the president has already taken note. In his Truth Social post about Mr. Mamdani, he made sure to announce in his usual capital letters that the candidate “looks TERRIBLE.”
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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