As has become all too clear as the fourth season of HBO’s financial drama “Industry” has progressed, its central entrepreneur, Whitney Halberstram, is not just another tech striver in a slender suit. Without giving away any plot points, the math isn’t adding up for Halberstram’s big financial sector disrupter. (Warning: some spoilers ahead.)
Moreover, Halberstram (played by Max Minghella) is, if not the best dressed character on TV right now, then certainly the one who best embodies how the right clothes can often get you further than doing the right thing.
“Whitney gets what you need to do to make yourself socially acceptable,” said Laura Smith, the costume designer who has worked on the show for the past two seasons. “He’s very much a conspicuous consumer, and he uses the codes of that as leverage to gain himself entry into certain rooms.”
Halberstram, introduced this season, is American, a Stanford grad with a past as murky as the Thames, who is now the C.F.O. of Tender, a banking start-up. His clothes — dressy, but not overdone, composed more than brash — become his passport through London’s particular financial sector, a place where a hunger for money mingles with stubborn class mores.
Mr. Minghella’s character wears single-breasted Richard James suits, soft at the shoulder and navy in hue. They fit him with a tailor’s touch, so as to show that he was raised right (or at least did his homework). He pairs them with same-shade crew necks or powder blue dress shirts made by Budd, a bespoke British shirtmaker. Those shirt collars aren’t off-the-rack Uniqlo. They stand at attention, as upright at Halberstram’s posture. His shoes are Crockett & Jones, a venerated British shoemaker.
Throughout its run, “Industry” has understood the importance of choosing the correct clothes. In its first season a neophyte banker gets verbally stuffed in a locker for wearing a chintzy suit. The show remains unsubtle about its politics of presentability. In this season’s first episode, when Halberstram orchestrates a shock takeover of his company from Jonah Atterbury, his hoodie-wearing friend and co-founder (played by Kal Penn), one reason given is Atterbury’s “general hygiene not befitting status of executive function.” As the ax fell, Halberstram sat on the other side of the boardroom table, radiant in his trim suit and spotless blue shirt.
Pocket squares? Never. Halberstram is not a “Shark Tank” host. Colors? Nothing more disruptive than an earth tone. Designer sneakers? Come on, he’s supposed to be perceived as a serious player, not Kendall Roy. He looks handsome, if unremarkable. And that’s the ideal.
In a manner similar to Elizabeth Holmes, though less stringent, Ms. Smith wanted Halberstram to have a tight box of a wardrobe.
“It’s one less decision, one less lie that he has to tell every day,” Ms. Smith said. His fine-gauge sweaters, navy suits and sober ties comprise 12 easy pieces for fooling the world. She likened him to another character who used presentability to slither his way through high society: Tom Ripley. Halberstram, like Ripley, is “a class interloper.”
In preparation for this season, Ms. Smith observed banker bros in the wild of London’s financial district. There she saw men get turned away from restaurants and clubs for not wearing the right attire. Power dynamics were woven into this season, especially with neckties, which, Ms. Smith said, “were used when characters were asking for something.”
The tie was on Halberstram in the latest episode, which aired on Sunday. With the glass walls of his corner office closing in, he sparred on CNN against a short seller while dressed in textbook upper management armor: a single-breasted suit and sepia necktie. That good-mannered image helped to keep his company going. At least for a few more days.
Jacob Gallagher is a Times reporter covering fashion and style.
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