The scene went viral. In the first episode of season 4 of Succession, the series which depicts the heartbreaks of the rich Roy family, all the characters come together to celebrate the birthday of Logan, the patriarch. Cousin Greg, the useful idiot of the clan, came accompanied by his new girlfriend, Bridget, who sports for the occasion an extra large shopping bag. Signed Burberry, it is recognizable by its beige tartan pattern, a symbol of culture in the 2000s. “chav” (referring to the working classes of British society).
In the cozy world of “quiet luxury” (the discreet luxury that banishes logos), the young woman stands out with her accessory, symbol, for the Roys, of the careerist who does not master the codes of “the 1%” (the richest on the planet). It was enough for Tom Wambsgans, son-in-law of Logan, himself a former upstart, to spit his venom on this bag “ridiculously big”. “What’s in there?” Flat shoes for the metro? His snack? It’s monstrous, it’s gargantuan.” he exclaims, with his usual cynicism.
The series’ costume designer, Michelle Matland, explained to the American site Huffington Post that she had bought twenty bags to find the perfect model, the one that would trigger Tom’s wrath. She finally set her sights on this Burberry tote at more than 2,000 euros, “the middle-class girl’s version of a Gucci or a Saint Laurent”. Not sure that the British brand, relaunched by the arrival at the end of 2022 of designer Daniel Lee as artistic director, appreciates the spade.
If the costume designers of the series often ask the brands to lend them pieces (they then have access to a few sentences of the synopsis), they also have a budget which allows them to acquire models without needing to request authorization from place them in a scene. The brands then discover some of their products during the broadcast, like any viewer. “We are sometimes taken by surprise and we then have the impression that the management of our image is slipping away from us. Some brands don’t support this, but sometimes it’s positive,” explains Marie Wittmann, communication director of the French brand Maje, whose clothes have appeared in the series Insecure Or The Idol.
Many fashion and luxury houses like Hermès, Fendi, Valentino or Balmain found themselves in the South Korean series The Glory, with designer pieces but also mentions in the dialogues. In this series about school bullying, with a fanciful storyline, the heroine is beaten until she faints, mocked, burned with a curling iron by a group of rich, lawless high school students. The references to Dior are so numerous that viewers wondered if the brand had sponsored the fiction, which it would have denied in the South Korean press.
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