7 hours ago
The most exciting moment on each episode of the reality TV show Celebrity Traitors is when the ornate door of the breakfast room swings open to reveal which Faithful has survived another night of murder.
This season however, there has been an extra element of anticipation for the contestants and viewers at home. What will Jonathan Ross be wearing?
Since the hit show started in 2022, it has been the host Claudia Winkleman whose kilts, oversized knitwear and dramatic sweeping coats have drawn attention. This time around Ross has had the cast and the nation gripped until the very last second of his banishment. Over the past three weeks, the broadcaster has appeared in everything from dapper tailoring to an 80s Top Gun-esque jumpsuit. There have been snazzy cravats, oversized aviator sunglasses and dramatic fuzzy stoles. At one point he even paid homage to Winkleman’s signature style by sauntering around the castle in a tweed cape and fingerless leather gloves.
Throughout his career, on-screen and off, the 64-year-old has been known for his eccentric personal style. Ever since he burst on to screens in 1986 as the host of the late night TV chatshow The Last Resort, a jazzy oversized suit has been his signature. So while no one expected Ross, who once wore a blue checked Jean Paul Gaultier tailored skirt suit to a Pulp Fiction premiere in 1994, to start dressing like a member of the Labour party, his decision to ramp up his outlandish style as a Traitor did come as a surprise because remaining inconspicuous is key. In previous seasons of the civilian version of the show contestants such as Paul Gorton tried to go under the radar in unremarkable jeans and T-shirts and the ex-army engineer Harry Clark leant into a “softboi” persona in flannel shirts and a pearl necklace.
Dr Dion Terrelonge, a fashion psychologist, thinks of Ross’s look as a costume. “In a game that is all about perception, Ross seemed to lean into his personal style even more so than he tends to do in his everyday life,” he said. Terrelonge believes Ross’s looks contributed to the Faithfuls’ “big dog” theory where they were convinced it was either him or Stephen Fry leading the Traitors pack. “He went on a show where usually the simplest strategy used is to try to blend in,” Terrelonge says. “But by dressing in an attention-grabbing way, Ross purposefully chose to stand out. Sometimes when people dress in that way it is used to signal status. It says ‘I am a leader’ and ‘I am going to do things my way’. It was risky. It could have made him much more vulnerable just because he physically stood out.”
While the cast were assigned a stylist, Ross plotted his looks himself, choosing pieces from his vast personal wardrobe. In a post-show interview, he explained he had packed even more unconventional pieces – including a full goth look – that he never got a chance to wear.
Of course, only the viewers at home knew that Ross was truly a Traitor. As a result, his wardrobe performed in the same way as his treacherous behaviour to the other cast members. That aforementioned jumpsuit and Ray-Ban aviators look alluded to Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” hero and created a sort of Faithful energy as Ross pushed a two-and-a-half-tonne Trojan horse up a hill with his fellow celebrities.
While under the cover of darkness, Ross donned a velvet cloak to carry out his killings, by day his jovial tweed cape evoked the gentle detective Sherlock Holmes as he pretended to help the Faithfuls determine who was deceiving them. All that was missing was the deerstalker hat. His homey knitwear also helped to mislead players as he captured the aesthetic of cosy crime films such as The Thursday Murder Club. Would a ruthless killer really wear a fuzzy leopard print cardigan and caramel corduroy trousers to breakfast in the morning? Clare Balding didn’t seem to think so when she compared that particular look to the cast of the Flintstones. “Yabba, yabba don’t,” quipped Alan Carr in response.
But for every innocent guise there was a more undeniably faithless look. In a post-show interview, the comedian Lucy Beaumont, who was murdered by Ross face to face, said on reflection she could not believe her and her fellow faithfuls didn’t decipher Ross was a Traitor from his clothing alone.
The stylist Peter Bevanpoints to checked tailoring as “Bond baddie coded” and compares the black furry stole Ross wore to Paloma Faith’s funeral to Cruella de Vil. “Even though his clothes are naturally quite eccentric, it felt like he hammed up the bad-guy persona intentionally,” Bevan says.
However, even when Ross was aware he was coming to his demise, he remained defiant, choosing to wear an attention-grabbing Kermit green blazer to attend what would be his last round table. After seven days and dozens of wardrobe changes, the faithfuls finally put the not-so-secret sartorial clues together.
