Designing 007 – New exhibition about James Bond: Part 2, Clothes and Style
Clothes have always been a major part of Bond, from the Savile Row suits of the Connery Bond, through to Daniel Craig. The exhibtion, having free access to Eon Productions Bons archive, has some amazing costumes on show, including most of the spactacular dresses worn by Bond heroines and villainesses. But lets talk about some Bond male peacocking.
Connery Bond
So it is with Connery we start. The director of the first Bond movie, Dr No, was Terence Young. He took Connery to his own Savile Row tailor, Anthony Sinclair, who made Connery his suits for the role.
Savile Row and Aston Martin - Lifesize tableau at "Designing 007"
However even here Bond was revolutionary. The “Conduit Cut” that Sinclair made up for Bond was lighter than was usual for Savile Row at this time. The Bond suits were narrower, and though they still had a firm shoulder it was softer than typical Savile Row suits. The suit had a roped sleevehead and a simple elegant silhouette. This makes sense, because if you look at the Savile Row suits of the time they were more like the suits “M” wears in the movies, very heavy wools, double-breasted, big lapels. So Bond stands out. Bond suits were lighter, the fabrics often brighter. In “From Russia with Love” Bond’s suits are clearly Savile Row, but made up in lighter flannels and paler colours.
Here is a picture from the exhibition, a montage of stills showing Bond being costumed. You can just make out Brosnan in a Brioni half-canvas at the bottom right.
Dressing the Bonds
Here again, is Bond’s original overcoat and homburg from Dr No.
Bond's Homburg and overcoat from Dr No
The Casino
One of the best parts of the exhibition is “the Casino” which features the costumes from the Bond movies. The casino motif is inspired because it gives us the opportunity to compare and contrast the formal styles from the Bond movies. “The Casino” has costumes from all of the movies and some of the women’s dresses are very fancy indeed. However this is What Makes a Man, so here are some pictures of the men’s evening dress.
This first is a Connery dinner jacket.
This is the dinner outfit of Emilio Largo, chief villain in Thunderball. Largo was played by Adolfo Celli, an Italian character actor with a lake-sized reservoir of charisma. For me, Largo was the best Bond villain ever.
Here is Sean Connery’s white tuxedo from Goldfinger. It is the one he wore after sabotaging the weapons plant. You remember the scene; he unzips his wetsuit to reveal the tux, complete with boutonnière. Rare style.
Here is the costume of the wonderful Vladimir Zhukovsky, from Goldeneye and The World is Not Enough. Zhukovsky was an ex-KGB turned Russian Mafia gangster making a quick buck in post-perestroika Russia, as played by Robbie Coltrane. A wonderful character, he lit up every scene he was in.
Classic costumes:
The bikinis are of course the Ursula Andress original bikini from Dr No and Halle Berry’s bikini, worn in homage to the Andress original, in Die Another Day. Daniel Craig’s swim briefs were made by La Perla and Sean Connery’s swim shorts by classic English brand Sunspel.
Bikinis and Bond swimwear
And this just had to be shown!
Yes, it is the original crappy Roger Moore safari jacket! Already ten years out of fashion when he wore it, it became a symbol of just how tired the Bond franchise became.
Roger Moore's Safari Jacket
Designing Bond has a truly comprehensive set of Bond costumes. They are a kind of visual chronology of popular style, from Connery to Moore to Dalton to Brosnan to the present. You could view this section for hours. It is an object lesson in how to costume movies, down to script instructions about what each costume signifies.
Finally here is a costume that I really liked. This is Gustave Graves’ electric-shock armour from Die Another Day. It was locked in a display case, otherwise you would have a picture of me wearing it…..
Gustave Grave's electro-shock armour, from Die Another Day
Very cool, in a brutalist kind of way.
This is a very strong exhibition, there is so much in it and it has strength in depth as a result. If I had a criticism to make of it, it is that the “Bond shop” feels like an afterthought and it does not have a lot to it. I was surprised that it was not selling Lauent Bouzereau’s “The Art of Bond” which is a definitive work on Bond’s art and design. That said there are some good copies of original Bond posters and good prices. Here is a picture:
Classic posters at the Bond shop
My recommendation is go see this exhibition. I doubt that there will ever be another exhibition like this, with the whole of Bond in one place. It is great fun and really shows how the Bond magic was made. For every man who thought he should be Bond.
Part 1 of this article, Designing Bond and his toys is here
Part 3 of this article, a conversation with Bond Costume Designer Lindy Hemming, is here
Our series of articles about Pierce Brosnan, including the Brosnan Bonds, starts here
“Designing 007 – fifty years of James Bond” is at London’s Barbican from 6th July throught to Sept 5th. More info and tickets from the Barbican here
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The usual, predictable ill informed comment about Roger Moore’s safari clothing (“crappy”, “Already ten years out of fashion when he wore it”). Their lineage stretches back way before the 1970′s something even a casual perusal of Wikipedia would clarify and there would be nothing out of sorts about a British iconic spy wearing such an item in a tropical setting. For considered opinion on this topic and other matters Bond related this man knows his stuff http://www.thesuitsofjamesbond.com
Comment by david marlborough — August 10, 2012 @ 11:16 am
I am struck by the fact that I wrote thousands of words on the Bond Exhibition, in three separate articles and was extremely complimentary about it, yet you manage to find the one negative line and want to make a big deal about it.
So I stand by what i wrote. Several Bond experts have pointed out that Moore’s Bond costumes were unstylish, dated, heavy and very American in style. This was deliberate, to attract the American market. And you do not have to be an expert to see this with your own eyes. Every Seventies US TV crime show had the hero wearing one of those Safari jackets. Cheap and Ugly. Not exactly Savile Row, especially as Moore himself frequented (and still does) the marvellous Dougie Heyward.
And the line also stands as a bit of fun. Putting the jacket in the exhibtion has to be a bit of a laugh.
You are right about one thing though, Suits of James Bond is a marvellous site.
Comment by John Van Rijn — August 10, 2012 @ 3:03 pm
Thank you for sharing the photos from the exhibition. I appreciate all the good things you said about the exhibition, but if we agreed with you on everything there wouldn’t be any need to comment. I have to agree with david marlborough about the safari jacket. It’s a classic British style with a very long history, and that example from the exhibition was a recreation of the one from Octopussy, not the original. The one in Octopussy is especially appropriate considering he actually wears it on a safari. Yes, they were trendy at the time but so are flat front trousers right now, and that doesn’t make them wrong. Rather than talking to Bond experts about Roger Moore’s clothing, you should talk to clothing experts. There’s nothing remotely American about Moore’s suits, they are very English and Italian. Wide lapels and gently-flared trousers don’t make a suit 1970′s American. The clothes aren’t heavy at all, and even if they were, heavy suits are an English thing, not American, as I’m sure you know. He almost never wore anything that looked remotely remotely cheap. Hayward’s more relaxed suits came closest to American style, and they weren’t really much like Savile Row either. Savile Row tailors mostly make stiff, heavy suits. Hayward (on the opposite side of Mayfair from Savile Row) makes a very soft and light suit. But you are definitely right about Dalton’s clothes being more American in style (but only in Licence to Kil). Those are what really deserves the criticism.
And the white dinner jacket from the exhibiton is Moore’s from Octopussy by Doug Hayward, not Connery’s from Goldfinger.
Comment by Anonymous — August 10, 2012 @ 4:12 pm
Hi Anon,
Apologies for the late posting and reply but I was out of town and wanted to do your comment justice. Firstly, I appreciate your comment. It’s always pleasant to converse with someone who has a constructive opinion, rather than someone who leads off with an insult. I am pretty well informed on tailoring. My uncle was a bespoke tailor and I am on speaking terms with several Savile Row tailors, certainly enough to discuss technique. I also know (and like) Dougie Heyward’s clothes, I like the softer, slightly buccaneering flair on his jackets. Very stylish, glad that his daughter is keeping his style alive, and the shop look wonderful after the recent refit. You comment inspired me to watch some of the Roger Moore Bond movies again. Sometimes he was stylish (always looked great in a tux) but some of those blazer combinations were really unimaginative and leaden.
Like you, I love Safari jackets and they can look magnificent, Stewart Granger and Ernest Hemingway come to mind. Here is a a guy in a Safari jacket I like http://mainelydadswintercoat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/happiness-is-completed-safari-jacket.html. But I use it to illustrate my point. A Safari Jacket has to be definiitive, have a structure, have a bit of military rigour and manliness. After reading your comment I realised what it is that I dislike so much about the Moore safari. It has no structure and no guts, all the things that make a good Safari jacket have been surgically removed. It has a scalloped bottom edge and shirt-cuffs, it is floppy and has no presence. Moore would have looked great in something a bit stronger (He looked the business in Camo BDUs in “The Wild Geese”).
So though I still do not like it, you helped me see why. Many thanks, drop by any time.
Comment by John Van Rijn — August 19, 2012 @ 4:39 pm