What Succession’s Final-Season Fashion Means for Shiv, Kendall, and Roman

Succession’s costumes have provided a four-season-long symphony of neutrals and fine materials, courtesy of Emmy-nominated designer Michelle Matland. For the most part, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv (Sarah Snook) have neglected bold colors and showy designs—instead choosing “quiet luxury” looks in black, navy, gray, cream, and khaki to tastefully complement their journey through a Logan Roy–constructed ring of hell.

Despite those design parameters, Matland has had some fun throughout the series—dressing Shiv in head-to-toe white for her mother Caroline’s wedding as a fashion-choice F.U., for example. This season, when the Waystar team made a last-minute trek to Norway for the GoJo summit, Matland figured that Shiv wouldn’t have had time to properly pack—and put her in a belted Mackage trench coat with Dorito-orange puffer lining. (“There was something kind of funny about her not looking exactly like Shiv and it being a little inappropriate,” Matland told HuffPo.) For Logan’s funeral, in last week’s “Church and State” episode, Matland had Logan’s wives and mistresses all wear various pieces of emerald jewelry—bits and bobs the billionaire had gifted them over the years, denoting their years in service like stripes on a uniform.

In a phone call with VF ahead of the series finale, Matland says that, in spite of his rapid-fire jokes, Roman actually has “no humor in his clothes.” In “Church and State,” audiences get a peek at the racks of suits in his walk-in-closet as he prepares for the eulogy that never was. Matland says, “I think Roman’s closet hasn’t changed since he was 17.” Roman is the one sibling who pays sartorial homage to Logan this season, she says, by wearing the patriarch’s go-to at one point: a sweater. “I don’t think anyone else in the script is trying to emulate their dad,” she says. “They identify with him in a big way, but not through costumes.”

Shiv and Kendall, however, have had sartorial arcs Matland can sink her teeth into. Back in season one, Shiv actually embraced non-neutral colors—pastel blues! pinks!—and dress designs for a softer look indicating that she was her own person, outside of the family business. “Shiv started out in politics and didn’t want to be associated with her family,” Matland explains, before “coming all the way back to [Waystar] to fight for the succession of her character.” To reflect that life choice, in season two, the costume designer had Shiv channel Katharine Hepburn with high-waisted trousers; simple, elegant suits; and immaculate tailoring.

Shiv always loves a good power suit—whether it’s paired with a turtleneck, T shirt, silk blouse, or knit—but season four saw the character evolve again. In “Honeymoon States,” Shiv is at an all-time low when she takes a phone call in bed from a doctor’s office about her secret pregnancy. The rock-bottom moment is reflected in her wardrobe; Shiv wears an oversized T shirt that eagle-eyed viewers noticed bore the logo of a college in Minnesota, where Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) grew up.

“She’s in a very dark place, there’s no question,” Matland says. “I had that vision—that, in that dark moment, she would pull on his college tee. It was a reference to the fact that she was on the fence about where she stood with him—she loves him so much and still cannot get past infidelities.”

Dressing Shiv this season was a delicate balancing act. Matland knew that Snook was pregnant in real life, so she began dressing the actor to accommodate and camouflage her changing figure. Succession creator Jesse Armstrong did not decide Shiv would also be pregnant until filming the season had already begun, so Matland—who only gets scripts about a week before shooting—did not have much runway to plot Shiv’s pregnancy look. Yet she says that Shiv’s wardrobe in late season-four episodes signals her journey towards maternity.

“She is identifying herself as a woman now with child. And I think that’s a super strong, feminine [feeling],” Matland says. See, for instance, the sweetheart neckline Shiv chooses for her father’s funeral. “I think she wanted to say, ‘Here I am.’ She’s in a very hard place. This episode for her couldn’t be more dramatic. She’s fighting a battle with her brothers. She’s fighting a battle with her husband. She’s pregnant. Can you imagine more difficulty?”

Matland says that Kendall has had “the most arc with his character,” and, as such, has “taken a very strong trajectory in his costumes. He started out very ‘suit’…and wanting to be the brilliant young man his father always dreamed of. Then he takes this very dark turn where he has this accident and, basically, killed a man,and goes through use of drugs and his dark side. In season three, he became his own icon,” she says, referencing Kendall’s torrid romance with streetwear. “And now, he’s finally coming to terms with who he really is and what he wants to say about himself. He’s done the Brooklyn hipster moment, and then we see him come around and take leadership again.”

Though he’ll occasionally jazz up his wardrobe with a bomber jacket or baseball hat, Kendall has returned to the kind of wardrobe he thinks a corporate CEO should wear. “It’s kind of full circle,” Matland says. “He wants to reemerge as this incredible human.”

Matland notes that Strong, who has a reputation for being an immersive actor and a fashion enthusiast, would often call and text her with ideas for Kendall’s wardrobe. This season, for example, it was his idea for Kendall to custom-order *Top Gun–*style pilot jackets to wear at the investor meeting in “Life+.” (Matland modeled the jacket on the Tom Cruise design and had bespoke ATN and Waystar patches made.)

Matland says Strong decided that Kendall would wear a rare Gucci bomber jacket to the character’s over-the-top 40th birthday party in season three, which involved a room mimicking his mother’s womb, a children’s Wu-Tang Clan tribute band, and a dashed plan to sing Billy Joel’s “Honesty” while suspended from a cross. The actor was also responsible for dreaming up the custom Logan Roy–themed (L-to-the-OG) baseball jersey Kendall wears while delivering his rap tribute to his father at a season-two black-tie gala. The Loro Piana baseball hat Kendall has been wearing this season, which costs about $600, was another stroke of Strong genius. (“It developed as a shell of protection,” Matland told the Motion Picture Association. “It fits his comfort zone as a way to hide and also as a way to set himself apart from the more formal culture associated with his position, his family, and his company.”)

“He does a lot of homework,” Matland says of Strong, adding that she defers to his wardrobe suggestions for Kendall. “I respect his incredible intensity for the beloved details to his character. And I would never argue with an actor who has that much clarification. He’s really on top of it, and I’ve gotta get the guy credit. He knows who his characters are.”

Perhaps because of Strong’s enthusiasm for fashion, Matland says that, of the Roy siblings, Kendall is the character who most likely enjoys clothing shopping.

“He’ll probably stop in a boutique, and he’s got his girl or gentleman who’s waiting for him,” she imagines. “He made an appointment. They’ve got a rack of things, and he walks out with eight bags. I think he knows Madison Avenue better than I do.”