Everything Hannibal Wore on 'Hannibal' 

 ends on Saturday night. It has been wild, crazy, strange, scary, romantic, 

-esque, just plain great. We will miss it for many reasons. Maybe not the most important reason, or maybe the absolute most important reason: the world will no longer thrill to the far-flung excursions of Hannibal Lecter, Fashion Plate. As we await the show’s final act, we honor Hannibal’s fashion legacy — in chronological order from the pilot onwards. (A shout-out to

 costume designer Christopher Hargadon, Hannibal’s three-piece man since day one.)

Eggshell tie on eggshell shirt, with matching eggshell pocket square. It’s a look that says: “I am a trustworthy medical professional.”

Your dad’s second-favorite tie paired with a brown blazer and a red pocket square. Nothing to be afraid of, Will Graham.

Sign of problems ahead: When alerting a local serial killer to the authorities’ impending arrival, Hannibal goes for a tie-optional sweater-blazer combo. (On this show, “Tie-Optional” means “Up To No Good.”)

Episode 2, and we’re past that initial, tentative, “It’s the pilot so let’s play it cool on the windowpane checked three-pieces” phase. Whether he’s rocking a lighter suit with a blood-red pocket square…

…or a darker suit with a bright-white pocket square, the Hannibal style has officially arrived.

Another first in episode 2: Hannibal and his sitcom sidekick Hannibal’s Vest. Karl Lagerfeld wishes he read a tablet like this.

“I’m here for you,” says Hannibal’s face. “I am Shiva the God of Death” says that tie matched with that jacket.

A study in contrasts: Jack Crawford, always in black and gray, often shot with straight-line geometric ties. His tie represents

Another study in contrast. Look at Hannibal’s overcoat (powerful, passionate, impeccable buttons) and Will’s everything. Concrete gray and puke magenta? Everything that follows between them will be a fashion intervention.

A closer look at that tie grants us an opportunity to Rorschach some deeper meaning therein. What do you see when you look at that necktie? Personally, I see a drop of meteorite sperm cried from the 15th eyeball of Cthulhu.

Sorry, Hannibal, is that a blue-black plaid blazer on top of a blue zip-neck sweater on top of a tie?

Sorry, wait, Hannibal, is that yellow-black plaid blazer on top a red zip-neck sweater on top of a

Having reinvented the zip-neck sweater into a crime-scene three-piece, Hannibal settles down with a tie that looks like a sonnet about a bloody water lily.

Up to no good in a tie-optional combo of that yellow-black blazer and a zipper-free sweater.

Letting his hair down and his vest breathe with Alana.

Like No. 1, but with more patterns this time, because the madness rises.

Thought bubble over this outfit. “Me? Cook humans? I’m just the humble manager of a successful brokerage concern!”

A gentlemen knows when to wear a suit, and when a set of demure black slacks will do just fine. Note how Hannibal is making the same expression as the pocket square.

Hannibal’s most and least subtle outfit: The devil-red shirt/square combo.

Before dinner time, a gentlemen only removes his jacket if he is planning to put on an apron.

. Or maybe it’s a kimono? Hannibal’s kimono is obviously an homage to Number Six in

Red patterned tie on a red shirt, symbolizing the nefarious allure of the forbidden.

Red patterned tie on white shirt. Symbolizing the battle between good and evil.

Stare into that tie long enough, and it becomes the “Night on Bald Mountain” scene from

The tale of the lonely yellow pocket square, cast adrift upon the Great Sea of plaid teal.

Never has a paisley tie looked more like a slumbering mystical serpent of lore.

In episode 6, we meet Frederick Chilton, eternal pretender to the throne. Chilton doltishly pairs an ill-patterned tie with a licorice-candy-cane shirt and a tan blazer. Obviously, this means war. And when Hannibal goes to war…

…he reveals his full power with a casual unbuttoning. GAZE UPON YOUR PAISLEY DOOM, FREDERICK CHILTON.

In the present, Hannibal and his paisley pet listen patiently to Jack Crawford describe his long-lost student, Miriam Lass.

In the past, Hannibal and the tie he carved out of your mother’s garden prepare to give Miriam Lass the long-lost treatment.

Midway through the first season, Hannibal decides to stop fooling around. Thus, tux.

Thus, a rare moment of de-vested glory. Because sometimes it is merely enough to let your tie breathe. In Hannibal’s world, skinny ties were never invented. Nor digital watches. Nor whatever we wear now instead of pocket squares.

Addendum to the rule about jackets before dinner: It is barely acceptable to remove it if you are rescuing someone from an organ-fetishist EMT serial killer.

Black tie over an apron = Food Network Lector.

When hosting a dinner party filled with annoying people eating other annoying people, sometimes a subtle tie is the best tie.

Fun fact: The last ten outfits? All from the same episode.

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Franklyn just wants to be Hannibal’s pal, the Jimmy Olsen to Hannibal’s Clark Kent. He tries! See Franklyn with a madcap spackle-tie sweater combo…

Or Franklyn, wearing what amounts to the Safeway Select Cola version of Hannibal’s closet.

But Franklyn’s pal Tobias, who has a keen sense of the blending of charcoal gray with charcoal tie?

So impressed that Tobias earns a dinner invite.

Another day, another pocket square. Boring, boring, boring…

…until Tobias shows up, covered in blood and gore and looking like a maniac but wait a second DOES THAT VEST HAVE LAPELS?

A vest with lapels. The only appropriate punishment: Death by skull-bludgeon. Now, many people have noted the symbolism of Hannibal’s chosen instrument of bludgeoning: The stag sculpture. But take a closer look. Do you see what Hannibal wraps around that stag sculpture?

Goodbye, muted palette! Hello, Mother’s Garden Necktie, making its first non-flashback appearance in glorious rose-red color!

Evidence that Hannibal is a good influence on those around him: Alana begins to wear dresses made out of the bad dreams of Hannibal’s ties.

Counter-evidence: Will Graham, human incarnation of cargo pants.

With the suspicion off Hannibal, he de-mutes himself. Dig the goldenrod gradations manifesting across this necktie-shirt-square combo. “Goldenrod gradations” are both words, right?

F’real, though, this is every conversation between Will and Hannibal toward the end of season 1:

Another day, another pretender to Hannibal’s fashion throne. Meet Dr. Sutcliffe, potentially serious threat in the Medical-Professional-Will-Loves-most sweepstakes

 Aesthetic: Light antiseptic tones, the angel versus Hannibal’s dark-hued demon.

Sensing a threat, Hannibal invites Dr. Sutcliffe over for dinner. Sutcliffe stumbles out the gate with a black suit. Embarrassing.

All alone in the suit your uncle wore in the ‘70s, Hannibal ponders his options…

…and decides to end Dr. Sutcliffe, leading to the first sighting of the Plastic Suit of Death, which is really just an example of Hannibal’s fashion-forward aesthetic. Technically, this is a four-piece suit. (note that he is still wearing his watch and the Mother’s Garden necktie.)

But that blue pocket square? Starting to feel a little last week. And so now is the time for the dawn of a new age…

WITNESS THE RISE OF THE RED POCKET SQUARE WITH YELLOW TRIM.

Will’s gone mad. Time to go full Merlot.

figures out that Hannibal Lecter is maybe not the most trustworthy psychiatrist in Baltimore. Notice anything missing? Like, say…a tie? “Not wearing a tie” is Hannibal’s Heisenberg Hat.

A moment of triumphal plaid demands the Mother’s Garden tie.

Season one ends with a blue shirt, a brown plaid vest, and an overcoat.

Season two begins with a flashforward to apocalyptic calamity: Hamlet’s shirt, creased.

Blue and yellow. Difficult to pull off. Not impossible, obvs.

Whoever he’s eating, they couldn’t wear paisley.

Bold fashion choice of the season: Hannibal begins accentuating his pocket square with a Visitor’s Badge.

(Fun fact: Everyone in these pictures who isn’t Hannibal Lecter will probably get attacked by Hannibal Lecter, eventually.)

when the show begins to gleefully push the notion that Will and Graham are mirror images of each other/are becoming each other. See: A montage of two men preparing their neckties.

And now, a window into the mind of Will Graham:

It’s a look that says: I just purchased the golf course from

The single most offensively beautiful tie anyone has ever worn.

I know, pretty boring look for a testimony, right? Well…

Jack Crawford’s badge < polka-dot pocket square.

Further adventures in fashion: pairing the Visitor’s badge with blue latex glove.

Return of the pretender: Chilton’s back, now with a snazzy new cane.

Requiring heavy artillery, Hannibal brings the red pocket square with yellow trim out of his carbonite container.

Surprised by an early caller, Hannibal casually dons a morning sweater.

You’ve seen the tie. You’ve seen the jacket. Now see them with carefully placed symbolic horns!

Wearing a suit made out of Jack Nicklaus’ golf pants, Hannibal catches up on

If you think about it, a noose is kind of like a necktie. (PS: Sweet trunks, bro.)

Having barely survived his ordeal with the Hangman, Hannibal briefly allows himself to wear something a typical human male might wear in the 21st century.

Meanwhile, behind Chilton’s left shoulder: Witness the two most overdressed background extras this side of a Baz Lurhmann champagne commercial. I’d watch an entire spinoff about those guys. Let’s call them “Emerald Jacket and Checkerboard Jones.”

Hannibal takes off his tie for a late-night piano session with Alana. His intentions must be pure, right?

Remember that morning sweater? Thrill to the paired pajama bottoms. (PS: Horns!)

When eating a dinner guest — while he’s still alive, sitting at your table,

Blue over plaid is ideal for lying straight to your brainwashed former captive’s face…

…but four out of five psychopathic doctors recommend pairing the blue-over-plaid combo with a plastic murdersuit.

This is what happens when Hannibal Lecter gives you a makeover. Lesson learned: Dr. Lecter doesn’t like tie clips.

Hannibal Lecter: The single greatest advertisement for the zipper-sweater/tie combo

Free from imprisonment, Will finally starts dressing like a grown-up…

It’s all a scam, of course. Will’s long con to ensnare Hannibal is expressed, via clothing, with his inability to truly divest himself of his gray-brown prairie grandmother look.

Hannibal is unamused. His black polka-dotted pocket square belies his melancholy.

In a dream sequence, Will gives Hannibal another noose-tie. Hannibal makes it work.

A new tie, modeled after the Turkish rug they buried Hoffa in.

The show’s deepest layers expressed via fashion. See Will Graham, torn between two extremes. Will he choose the earthy embrace of Jack Crawford’s goodness, his brown overcoat, his simple-geometric-forms tie? Or will he choose Hannibal, cast here in darker shades with a red scarf-and-tie combo?

Possible cause for concern: That subtle burst of red from Will’s shirt, gravitationally pulling him toward Hannibal’s side of the frame.

Meanwhile, the show introduces Hannibal’s most profound fashion nemesis:

Mason Verger, shown here dressed as a society matron on the way to a Sum-41 concert.

Hannibal understands the seriousness of Mason’s threat. He goes to the Verger estate, wearing dapper leather gloves. But Mason anticipates the fashion attack, wearing a pair of his own.

Pairing a tan vest with a plaid jacket. A clear sign of frayed nerves.

With Hannibal on the ropes, Mason launches a more devastating attack, arriving at his first therapy session wearing Tom Wolfe.

Surprised late at night, Hannibal has nothing to defend himself with, besides his vest and his loose strand of Petrelli hair.

Mason loans him a jacket. Hannibal makes it work.

Mason loans him a pig’s head. Hannibal makes it work.

A nice clean shirt to prepare dinner. Spoiler alert: Won’t stay clean.

Going Full Brando with a leather jacket. Totally not interested in that dude’s scarf game, either.

Going Full Bond with a red bowtie and a white pocket square.

For a man of the world living under an assumed identity, it’s best to adopt radical new fashion rules. No vest. No tie. No plaid. Black pocket square on light brown suit. It’s a look that says: “I am third in line for the throne of a country you haven’t heard of.”

A bold pairing of a classical bowtie with a postmodern projected-hallucination facemask. Kanye has already co-opted this look somehow.

Things are going great for Hannibal in Italy. His pocket square occasionally resembles the folded leaves of a succulent plant.

Modeling sharp obsidian, Hannibal ponders misspent turtleneck years.

And this is the part of the show when Dream-Hannibal starts appearing, in his office chair, in the middle of the Lithuanian wilderness. With a new tie.

Meanwhile, Actual-Hannibal continues his exploration of the outer reaches of bowtie fashion with this coat taken from Pete Campbell’s Leisure collection.

Yet even in this bowtied Florentine utopia, Hannibal must suffer the social nuisance of pests who think they can out-Hannibal Hannibal. Italy’s Chilton is Doctor Sogliato, who dares to challenge Hannibal’s knowledge of Dante.

Having flushed out the pest, Hannibal settles back into casual bowtie bliss.

But this pensive sweater is a sign. He’s dreaming of Will, and workshirts, and gray-brown sweaters.

And Will is dreaming of Hannibal, an what could have been. (You can tell it’s a dream, because Actual Hannibal would never pair a black pocket square with that jacket.)

gradually turns every character into every other character: This is the point when Alana starts walking with a snazzy cane, a look which Anna Wintour refers to as “The Season 2 Chilton.”

That pocket square, though. Damn. It’s like peacock feathers for the heart.

That shirt is arguably the only truly indefensible fashion decision Hannibal has ever made, although it becomes acceptable when you remember he’s serenading Bedelia with tunes from

Literally the only time in three seasons that Hannibal’s shirt is ever untucked.

Reunited and it feels so good. Clearly, Will has not learned his lesson about what happens whenever Hannibal isn’t wearing a tie.

What happens, part 1: Hallucinations of Dream Hannibal rocking the magenta look with a bold whitescale jacket.

What happens, part 2: Hanging upside-down in the pig truck. (I would argue that Will’s shockingly specific blood-splatter constitutes a tie.)

At last, the showdown with the Great Pretender. Mason Verger has armed himself well. It’s not just the tie, or the checked jacket. Look closely. At last, Hannibal has met a nemesis daring enough to

Hannibal finds Mason’s assault positively delightful. Maybe it’s because Mason took the time to craft Hannibal a perfectly fitted brown three-piece with a turquoise handkerchief/tie combo. Or maybe it’s because…

…Will FINALLY looks presentable! Ladies and gentlemen: Witness Three-Piece Graham.

Caught by law enforcement? A low point, to be sure. But only because Hannibal looked all around Wolf Trap and couldn’t find a single solitary checked plaid vest.

Oh, we can dream of red pocket squares and three-piece suits and ties that look like the wormhole sequence from

…but the new normal is boxer shots and handcuff bracelets…

But the good news is: Hannibal still gets to wear Will Graham.

And the great news is: At the asylum, there’s always the opportunity to accessorize.

Good night, paisley. Good night, plaid. Good night, pocket square. Good night, Dr. Lecter. Good night,

•‘Hannibal’ boss previews series finale, considers cannibalism

•Hugh Dancy and Gillian Anderson get philosophical in exclusive ‘Hannibal’ finale clip

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