Succession's Season 4 Premiere's Best Fashion Moments

Someone get that ludicrously capacious bag a spinoff!

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***Succession Season 4 premiere spoilers ahead.***

The most au courant TV show fashion-wise this year won’t be our beloved Emily in Paris or And Just Like That, which showcase the maximalist style of the kinds of women who follow Vogue on Instagram. It is Succession, which chronicles the infighting of the ultra-wealthy Roy family, who, as Sunday night’s Season 4 premiere made clear, look down on the Carries and Emilys of the world. These women are buying bright blue pumps with glittery embellishments from Manolo Blahnik and metallic green knee-high boots from Maison Skorpios in order to telegraph something about themselves to the world and their Instagram followers. Because Instagram is the kind of thing one has to do when you’re a lowly content creator, but something to avoid at all costs when you own the company publishing the content.

The Roy family’s purposefully bland clothes on Succession are being heralded as the platonic ideal of “quiet luxury,” a trend where rich people buy simple understated clothes instead of diamond chandelier earrings and the sorts of obvious trend pieces that have long powered fashion interest around television shows. If Bradshaw and Cooper are dressing for the ‘gram, the Roy family is dressing for the dreary business casualness of their day-to-day lives. It’s the ultimate power move, being so wealthy and sure of your success that you need to look nice, but don’t need to try. The old money look that bubbled up on TikTok in recent years got it completely wrong: old money isn’t about cable knit cardis and tennis skirts, it’s about boldly telegraphing that you do not not have to participate in self-promotion online or off, including by having a definable aesthetic. To the Roy family, #aesthetic is for poors.

Here’s a closer a look at some of the best fashion moments from the season premiere.

The ‘Ludicrously Capacious Bag’

The best burn in the episode came when Tom pulled Cousin Greg aside to fashion-shame his date. “So I hear you’ve made an enormous faux pas and everyone’s laughing up their sleeves about your date,” says Tom.

“What, why?” says Greg.

Tom: “Because she’s brought a ludicrously capacious bag. What’s even in there, huh? Flat shoes for the subway? Her lunch pail? I mean, Greg, it’s monstrous, it’s gargantuan. You could take it camping. You could slide it across the floor after a bank job.”

The offending bag was a boxy Burberry plaid affair with handles and (horror) a removable shoulder strap. It could either be one of those things you didn’t know Burberry still sold or a Canal Street counterfeit. Regardless, Tom is clear that to the people in that room, who never take public transit and have idling town cars instead of utilitarian handbags, it reeks of middle class desperation.

He continues, “She’s used all the display towels in the bathroom and now they’re sopping wet. She’s gabbling about herself and posting on social media. She’s asking people personal questions and she’s wolfing all the canapés like a famished warthog.”

When Greg says “people are overreacting” and “she brought a normal sort of handbag,” Tom replies, “You are a laughing stock in polite society. You will never go to the opera again.”

These writers are so damn good. That dialogue is so crisp you could put a slice of gruyère on it and eat it. Something Greg’s date surely did at that party.

Logan Roy’s Friend, Assistant, and Advisor Kerry’s Blue Suit

I loved her well-cut bright blue pantsuit, but that’s likely because I’m among the peasant class that shops at sample sales and follows street style on TikTok. Of course Logan’s assistant — the one theoretically working her way up who may actually have something to lose — is the one wearing the trendy, bright blue suit. Because in Succession, trends are for the help. Her suit also brilliantly stood apart from the rest of the guests at the birthday party, whose clothes had the vibe of the saddest things they could find at the world’s most expensive stores.

Shiv’s Beige-y Brown Suit

I recall reading a review of one of the recent fall 2023 collections on Vogue Runway that asked how many brown pantsuits women really need? Well, if you’re targeting the Shivs of the world, which I’m guessing is a good business model, probably a hefty supply that you can go through like a box of Kleenex? She spent the whole episode in a light brown suit with printed drawstring pants. Like she was attempting to do the chic “business woman conducts business from infinity pool” thing. Only the look seemed to purposefully be as sad as her mood.

Naomi Pierce’s Black-and-White Look

This woman deserves her own fashion coffee table book — another thing the Roy or Pierce households would never be subjected to. Can you imagine them stacking TOM FORD and CHANEL books in their end tables? Of course not because that’s something Cousin Greg’s date probably does. When the Roy kids go to try to buy the Pierce company, Naomi breezes onto the patio in wide-legged white pants and a simple black tank top (with a surprise subtly sexy back!) that she’s tucked in just so. I have no idea how the costume team quite engineered that tuck but it truly was the perfect high-waisted wide-leg pant tuck-in. She could have done without the earrings, but they were also a genius addition from the costume department, as if to say she can’t be too chic. Being too chic would make her too obvious — like she who soaks bathroom display towelettes.

Roman Roy

Roman’s blue shirt and almost-coordinating-but-not bright blue pants with a woven belt (Bottega?) seemed like an attempt to look relaxed, like the startup guy he now is. His outfit wanted to say “just swinging by the office on a summer Friday before taking a helicopter to the Hamptons.” Only he’s a Roy so no matter what you dress them in — drawstring waistbands, fun colors, logo-less sunglasses — they generally seem as relaxed as a Vogue assistant on Met Gala day. It absolutely looks like what you’d wear for a casual WFH day if your H is this:

The Loro Piana loafer of mansions.

Kendall Roy

Nothing says middle-aged yuppie like a logo-less baseball cap. Kendall’s sandblasted jeans and nondescript colorless jacket seem designed to telegraph not caring but also the “I’m so famous I need to disguise myself like a peasant” vibe commonly seen in Leonardo DiCaprio’s street style.

The Disgusting Brothers

Cousin Greg is dressed almost exactly like Tom, except he still doesn’t understand that the checked shirt and vaguely patterned suiting are TOO MUCH. Thank god he doesn’t because then he might not have allowed that ludicrously capacious bag entrée to the party.

Logan Roy

The fashion of older men is seldom considered. Very much considered, however, is Logan’s scarf — both the print and the way it’s perfectly tied and tucked into his jacket. This is the scarf of a man who hasn’t personally picked out Christmas gifts for friends and work colleagues in at least 60 years. He has had a brightly colored assistant-slash-friend to do that for him since the halcyon era of typewriters.

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