When it comes to satirising the one percent, there are few media properties that have ever gotten it as spot on as Succession, HBO’s juggernaut series which tracks the business deals and backstabbings that surround a fictional media empire. The show will come to an end in a few weeks’ time, and so far, its final season has been (literally) all killer, no filler, as the CEO and patriarch Logan Roy met his unexpected demise on a private jet (reportedly as he tried to fish his phone out of the toilet, if you believe anything Tom Wambsgans says).
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Pretty much everything about the series has been widely celebrated, as its writing, direction and performances come together to offer grounded, complex portrayals of the bad, sad, greedy people who live right at the top. And while there are many fascinating elements that contribute to the realism the show achieves, costuming, unsurprisingly, plays a particularly big role in its impressive verisimilitude.
Emmy nominee Michelle Matland and her department are simply very, very good at recreating the stealth wealth look of the contemporary super-rich. The characters’ clothing is largely unostentatious (and when it is not, this is usually a sticking point – take, for example, the “ludicrously capacious” Burberry bag carried by Greg’s date in the first episode of season four and mocked by Tom, who, having successfully climbed the class ladder, is the show’s biggest snob and gatekeeper), but effortlessly luxurious. Understated but beautifully made (and highly priced) items like Tom Ford polo shirts and Brioni suits tend to dominate.
The characters’ clothes, therefore, serve as status symbols, which tell us about their position on the show, or their state of mind. Think of the performative resortwear on the yacht in the season two finale, or Marcia’s over-the-top fascinator, worn as she receives Logan’s mourners into their home – another showy moment that doesn’t go unmentioned by the other characters. “Death becomes her,” Shiv remarks, smirking from inside a $3,700 McQueen blazer.
Someone else who was also dressed slightly differently in the show’s most recent episode was J Smith Cameron’s Gerri Kellman. In contrast with her usual attire – businesslike; a permanent chignon – and especially with the slightly cinched-in cut of the Scanlan Theodore suit she wore for Connor’s wedding in the previous episode, her style was much looser. Her hair was literally let down, curled around her shoulders, and she wore a lower cut top than usual. Gerri’s costuming seemed to say, therefore, that with her longtime boss Logan Roy out of the picture, she felt much freer.
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This was reflected in both the scripting for Gerri in the episode, and in J Smith Cameron’s performance throughout. While she has always been more than a match for the men on the show, ping-ponging horrible insults with the best of them, Gerri landed a couple of all-timer zingers as the Waystar Royco old guard assembled to discuss the company’s interim leadership.
Upon Tom’s unconvincing admission that he was “sick with grief”, Gerri barely missed a beat before hitting back. “Well, you might want to put that fish taco down,” she remarked, turning Tom’s own well-documented snootiness around social mores back on him. And when Karl threw his hat in the ring to take on the role of Waystar CEO, Gerri – the most experienced party in the group – gave him the backhanded compliment that launched a thousand “gather him mother” tweets: “What you did with cable in the ’90s… huge.”
As the figure on the show who represents a “woman in business” from the ’80s power dressing and shoulder pads era, Gerri’s style has never typically been unfeminine, but it has certainly been reserved and in line with what her male counterparts have worn; that is, dark, buttoned-up suiting. But after having essentially been verbally let go from Waystar in the previous episode, by Roman of all people, it seems that she has maybe decided to care a little less. This was, after all, a company she had served and presented a particular version of herself for, for decades. Perhaps she is asking herself: when even her consummate professionalism is not good enough, what is the point in keeping it up? A few undone buttons and a statement necklace simply can’t hurt.
And I have to say, this version of Gerri is great fun. We can only hope that this is the iteration of the character that we continue to get throughout the show’s final season, because though she is always brilliant to watch, it was especially delicious to watch her eviscerate her peers while also looking glamorous, rather than entirely businesslike. May her blow dries grow as ostentatious as her insults are deeply personal and cutting: it’s what she deserves.
