Rich people were doing shitty things long before Succession season 4 episode 5, and the Hamlet-ean 1 per cent psychodrama is currently raging through its final act. But in a world of ever-dividing wealth, the privileged class has found itself under an intense scrutiny that enrages and fascinates all at once. We've never been so aware of the once-covert upper class. And the Roy family – a line-up of arseholes high on the fumes of power and really, really, really good cocaine – have become The Culture's favourite punching bag and soap opera rolled into one.
We can now spot these Roy types. With the Succession costume department providing an education of sorts for the 99 per cent, we know that media heiresses shiver through walk-in wardrobes of oatmeal blazers and impossibly soft roll-necks. We know that their brothers elect for well-cut suits in forgettable shades from the finest Italian marques. We know that even the off-duty stuff – the baseball caps, the sweatpants, the quilted puffer-blazers – are outrageously expensive and exceedingly understated. Old money rarely swaddles itself in a logo-stacked hoody.
But nothing gold-plated can stay. The Roys, a family at the helm of a legacy media conglomerate, have seen the wheels come off. They're being overtaken – and out-spent – by a newer, green energy model that's probably self-driven. And in the back sits Lukas Matsson, tersely played by Alexander Skarsgård, who serves as the spiritual manifestation of Elon Musk, Daniel Ek and all the other heterodox tech bro billionaires.
He's not in buttery Milanese tailoring or overcoats woven from the dreams of a Manhattan hedge fund manager. His uniform is one of slubby grey T-shirts, Adilette sliders, cargoes and roll-necks that are less Theranos, more Loch Ness. There's not even an attempt to apply some polish. No clean lines of Loro Piana; no quiet flourishes of Brunello Cucinelli. It's technical, and choppy. On season four episode five, Jeremy Strong's Kendall Roy dresses for a Norwegian team-building weekend in a modular look of well-fitted knits and a puffer jacket in a specific neutral shade of Fucking Loaded. For Mattson, it's a pair of contrast blue and black ‘Keb’ trousers from Nordic outfit Fjällräven. They're functional. They also cost just £215.
It's gorpcore in the original sense, before the madness of collabs and fit checks. But don't be confused by the moody palette. This is not ‘quiet luxury’. A term the Internet has recently lost its mind over, it rehashes the hardly-new notion that the 1 per cent dress on a ‘money talks, wealth whispers’ setting.
And that's the point. Quiet luxury works for the office and the Zoom call-in from Panama; cargoes and boiled wool roll-necks work for neither. In a world where tech bros are knitting financial safety nets for old money dinosaurs, they represent both the threat of extinction and the saviour. And in a show where minor things mean everything, Matsson's look is intentional: it says who he is, what he does, his entire belief system. There's Shiv in the wannabe CEO starter kit. There's Kendall in the mid-life crisis coolwear. And there's Lukas Matsson in cargoes and T-shirts that give the management consultant class the middle finger – and they make his status as the next-gen titan known. He's above them. After all, his kind made new money by ignoring the old ways – and old money has concerns.
Succession season 4 episode 5 is now streaming on Sky
