At the end of the third episode of Euphoria season three, we were left peeking out from behind spread fingers at a bunch of big questions. What does the feds catching up with Rue mean for her nascent strip-club management (and drug- and gun-running) career? Are Alamo and Laurie about to be in open war over a dead parrot? And, most importantly, how much money has Nate Jacobs spent on Bottega Veneta?
Many have noted that Jacob Elordi’s Nate has a curious penchant for wearing head-to-toe Bottega Veneta—much like the actor himself, who is an official Bottega ambassador. Many have speculated that Elordi’s contract is behind the presence of a trompe l’oeil flannel-printed leather overshirt, famously worn by Kate Moss on the BV runway, in the Euphoria extended universe.
It turns out that Nate Jacobs just really loves Matthieu Blazy-era Bottega. Like, really loves it.
As the season’s costume designer, Natasha Newman-Thomas, told GQ, the Bottega connection is in fact something of a coincidence. Five years after graduating from high school, Nate is masquerading as a baller real-estate developer, but he’s really up to his eyeballs in debt as a big-money assisted-living project is suffocated by red tape. His Bottega fits are his stealth-wealth—remember that?—uniform. His leather flannel might read like an industrious foreman fit when he’s on the job site, but when his investors (which include his neighbors and a goonish Armenian businessman named Naz) clap him on the back, surely the buttery handfeel makes it clear that Nate is, in fact, successful and wealthy enough to trust with their money.
“It’s performative workwear [and] Nate’s whole career in this show is based on performance,” Newman-Thomas explained.
The show goes to great pains to illustrate Nate’s high-rolling lifestyle. Our first glimpse of Elordi’s character shows him pulling up to his garish suburban manse in a Cybertruck. He’s got a honking gold Rolex dangling from his wrist at all times. But as his money problems deepen over the first three episodes, it got me wondering just how much of Naz’s money Nate took straight to the Bottega Veneta boutique in Glendale.
The answer, based on my back-of-envelope math of everything in Nate’s wardrobe I was able to ID, is just a hair shy of $50,000. (For the purposes of this exercise, I erred on the side of assuming he sources his less-visible sweaters and jeans from his favorite brand.)
This eye-popping sum raises a bunch of additional questions. If Nate survives Naz’s shakedown into an entirely hypothetical, definitely-not-happening season four, would he follow Matthieu Blazy to Chanel, or would he rock with Louise Trotter’s Bottega? Has he spent enough money that we’ll get a scene where he’s sitting front row with fellow VICs at Milan Fashion Week?
Ironically, with all that Bottega, he could have paid for the wedding florals!
Here’s a breakdown of all of Nate’s Bottega fits so far, with the most accurate pricing I could find.
Episode 1
The Construction Foreman Look
Photo: Bottega Veneta
Photo: Bottega Veneta