New style crush: Nolan Ross in REVEEEENNNGGE.

Following multiple recommendations from The Oncoming Hope, I watched the first episode of Revenge. And then I promptly watched the other four episodes, because it's freaking awesome. It's like a cross between Gossip Girl and Veronica Mars, with the protagonist -- Emily -- seeking REVEEEENNNGE (this in fact is the correct pronunciation of the title -- for best effect, drawl it with the confidence and malicious delight of the truly evil) on the super-rich beautiful people who got her father framed as a treasonous terrorist. There are endless dastardly takedowns and almost every scene involves terrifying society matriarchs smiling charmingly while secretly wishing each other a painful death, but it quite never tips over into the preposterousness of Gossip Girl because the protagonist is so wonderfully dead-eyed and machiavellian. But I'm not here to tell you about the many ways the heroine of REVEEEENNNGE Count-Of-Monte-Cristo's her way around the Hamptons. I'm here to talk about NOLAN ROSS.

Nolan Ross is the only person on the show who knows about Emily's revenge plan. He's a dotcom billionaire with no friends, unlimited funds and free time at his disposal, and a serendipitous desire to help Emily ruin the lives of the rich and evil. He's a very entertaining character, and has marvellously awful dress sense. The rest of the costumes on Revenge are fairly run-of-the-mill "rich attractive people go to social galas" outfits as seen in Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money, etc, but Nolan's costumes are a magnificent ode to candy colours and popped collars.

This is what he looks like when he first appears on the show. My immediate assumption was, "this character is evidently going to be an unbearable caricature", since he's wearing a captain's hat at a marina, despite the fact that he can't sail and doesn't own a boat. He has tiny whales embroidered onto his trousers, and I suspect that the belt may well be somehow nautical in theme. But you know what? He's actually brilliant. He doesn't fall under the tired stereotype of "computer nerd with no social skills" that plagues so many google-detective "hacker" characters on TV -- in fact, he often expresses far more genuine emotion than most of the other characters in the show.

THE POPPED COLLARS. You know, there's a wealth of douchey fratboys in Revenge, but nary a popped collar in sight. They're all too classy. (And all the other males over thirty are, of course, wearing suits at all times except when playing golf or in bed with their mistresses.) But Nolan pops his collars like a mofo. This isn't some college kid flipping up his collar to look "cool", this is evidence of commitment. He will put on two polo shirts of complementary colours, and then pop them both. CLEARLY HE HAS THOUGHT THIS LOOK THROUGH, IS WHAT I AM SAYING.

HE'S WEARING A POPPED COLLAR UNDER A BUTTON-DOWN SHIRT. AND A POCKET-SQUARE THAT MATCHES THE SHIRT, BECAUSE IT'S A FORMAL EVENT. Apparently in the character notes he's described as having bad dress-sense, but do you know what? I don't think this is bad dressing. Thought has gone into this. And he's working it.

Nolan has a whole thing going on with his jackets. He's got several suit jackets, but they're always wrinkled and he always has the sleeves pushed up, like Miami Vice or something. I theorise that back when he was still a n00b of the business world, someone told him he had to start dressing like an adult and this was his interpretation of what that meant. Then, we finally got to see a flashback of what he looked like ten years ago:

This? Is what people expect the "computer nerd character" to look like. It's the Mark Zuckerberg look, the "I've been wearing these clothes for three days because I never matured past age fifteen and it doesn't matter anyway because I invented Google/Twitter/the internet" look. I love that this is what he used to look like, because it gives a whole new insight into Nolan's slightly baffling clothing choices in the present day. I think that all the popped collars and candy-colours and the highlighted surfer-dude hair are almost Nolan's parody of what he thinks a Hamptonite should look like. When we first see Nolan, he's already an established figure on the super-rich social scene -- so rich, in fact, that he can pretty much do whatever he wants. I think at some point he started dressing like this in an attempt to fit in with all the charity-gala Hamptons families, but soon realised that that was never going to happen so he might as well just take the piss. As I mentioned: he can get away with it.

A camel sweater tied around the shoulders? Plus the double popped-collar? TELL ME THAT ISN'T PURE PARODY, NOLAN. I DARE YOU. Which is why this next picture amuses me. That is what Nolan wears when he's by himself, and later going into the city to, uh, break into someone's house and retrieve some blackmail info. A far more subdued outfit -- the hoodie + suit + sneakers look, in fact, that practically screams "dotcom CEO".

And finally, a picture of Nolan looking fantastic in a super-tacky golfing shirt... because he's followed Emily to a golf course in an attempt to witness some exciting REVEEENNNGE action, not because he actually plays golf. Like many of his clothing choices, it shouldn't work but it does. The shirt flatters his colouring, and despite the fact that it's an orange, diamond-patterned polo shirt, buttoned up to the neck, he's still managing to work it with panache.

BEAUTIFUL.

Continued in: REVENNNGE: Nolan Ross costume analysis RETURNS.