Succession season 4 premiered on Sunday and all anyone can talk about is that “monstrous” Burberry bag.
If you’ve seen the episode, you *definitely* know what we’re talking about. It’s the classic Burberry check tote bag that Cousin Greg’s date brings. And, according to Tom, it’s just about the biggest faux pas she could have committed.
In perhaps the funniest moment of the premiere, Tom says to Greg,
“What’s even in there? Flat shoes for the subway? Her lunch pail? I mean, Greg, it’s monstrous. It’s gargantuan. You can take it camping. You could slide it across the floor after a bank job.”
Because, as anyone who’s anyone knows, big bags are only for poor people; Poor people who need to take the subway, who need to change out of their heels after work, who need to carry things around because they don’t have the help to do it for them. Not to mention that Burberry hasn’t been cool for at least a decade. The once “it” brand has fallen out of favor with the fashion crowd.
To sum it up, the Burberry bag is to Succession what the scrunchie was to Sex and the City (if you know, you know).
According to writer Bolu Babalola, the creator of the series Jesse Armstrong was responsible for the now-iconic pick. She tweeted,
“At the #succession premiere jesse armstrong said they interviewed a new york wealthy woman and said something like ‘what is the most offensive bag a woman could bring to something like this. would be the tackiest thing that someone who was trying to fit in would bring?'”
The irony, of course, is this is the best publicity Burberry has gotten in years. Everyone is now obsessed with the bag of the moment, aka the Burberry Medium Title Vintage Check Two-Handle Bag (and yes, we did say “medium”).
If you’re looking to get your hands on the bag for yourself (big bags are supposedly making a comeback this fall 2023), you can get one at Nordstrom or above. You can also get one secondhand on eBay.
The fashion has long been a big part of Succession since day one. According to the show’s costume director Michelle Matland, style is part of the family’s “decorum”. She previously told The Guardian,
“[The Roys] have been brought up in a very European sensibility. They were trained in how to behave and also how to dress. I think there is a decorum about that.”
Michelle also notes that the Roys tend to avoid logos as they’re essentially above that. She told Vogue Australia,
“It isn’t for anyone else, or anyone else’s knowledge that they do it. They simply do it because that’s what they know. They know nothing else. But they are not posturing their money, as it were.”
She continued,
“It’s people like Tom and people like Greg who the wealth has now just come to them. And for them, they need to pose and to have it on their sleeves because they don’t know what it is, yet. They can’t comfortably understand to let it be. But in terms of the Roys, they’ve got nothing to prove.”
In the season 4 premiere, Shiv Roy was spotted wearing a simple Max Mara blazer paired with Max Mara striped silk trousers (see above) — an outfit that cost thousands.
If you’re interested in keeping up with all the outfits this season on Succession, make sure you follow our article here, which will also tell you where you can get the pieces for yourself (that is, if you can afford a $2K pair of pants).
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