Breaking down 12 of James Bond’s biggest fashion statements
A vintage fashion specialist assesses the good and bad of 007’s wardrobe, from tuxes to turtlenecks to tiny little swim trunks
Film Features James Bond
James Bond is a man who’s all about the details. After nearly six decades on film, audiences have become well aware of his specific proclivities, from his preferred method of transportation to the way he likes his drinks prepared. Given his eye for the particular, it’s no surprise that 007 is also quite the snappy dresser.
Sean Connery’s debonair 007 set a high bar for style, but each successive actor has managed to put their own sartorial spin on the spy, threading in the trends of their respective eras while maintaining a certain timelessness that’s made Bond an icon, generation after generation.
But what can be gleaned from the wardrobe of the world’s most famous spy? If we read between the stitch-work of Bond’s signature looks, what do they say about the men who wear them?
For answers, we turned to menswear expert Sean Crowley, whose particular knowledge of British vintage menswear makes him well-suited (pun intended) to assess the film fashions that have come to define Bond since 1962. A former designer for Ralph Lauren, Crowley now operates a vintage shop of his own—Crowley Vintage & Antiques in Brooklyn, New York—that deals in “traditional menswear, soup to nuts.” Like many children of the ’80s and ’90s, Crowley’s own appreciation of 007 started with the semi-regular Bond movie marathons that would play on network television. He said he’s come to appreciate what all six actors have brought to the role, particularly how they’ve each shaped his sense of style to fit their own. (Though, for the record, Sean Connery’s his favorite: “He’s the exemplar, the quintessential Bond.)
As No Time To Die hits theaters this weekend—Daniel Craig’s final of five films, and the 25th in the official franchise overall—it felt like the perfect time to dive into the costume closet with Crowley and explore some of James Bond’s most notable outfits. With looks representing each actor, each era, and each style of 007 (there’s plenty of suits, of course, but also streetwear, tactical wear, and resort wear, too), our menswear expert surveys the evolution of style through the eyes of Bond.
64 Comments
The ski suit with hat and matching backpack say “ready for Alpine adventure!” while the color scheme screams, “Who wants McDonald’s?”
I think this is a part of the Moore silliness highlighted in the article.
It was the ‘70s, so I can’t fault Moore or the wardrobe department that much.
I’ve skied most of my life and this was before my time, but I can’t say I’ve EVER seen anyone dressed so ridiculously on the slopes.
Worst I’ve seen are those bright 90s esque jackets but that was typical of everyone anyway
Yeah, I guess there was some 80s neon colorblock still around. I think it’s the matching backpack that throws me.Meanwhile most of the outfits in FourFingerWu’s list there are pretty sharp.
Nothing at all!
Is that Lazenby? Did SPECTRE steal his pants?
“Sorry our ice cream machine is busted”
Those are the wrong shade for Mickey D’s. Looks more like Oscar Mayer to me.
Something something 007’s wiener…
Look, it was a fad in the 70s to dress like a pair of hotdog condiments when you went skiing, okay?
I searched James Bond ski outfits originally. The ski scenes were always my favorite when I was a kid.
https://www.gq.com/story/best-worst-james-bond-ski-scenesI recently came across the guy who did this stunt on Wikipedia.
The ski suit may be ridiculous but the Union Jack parachute can’t be beat.
How can I hide the fact that I’m a British secret agent? I know, I’ll have a big Union Jack parachute. Nobody will suspect me because it would look too obvious!
This one I remembered too. Very stylish.
Moore’s winter clothes were the worst- big puffy jackets with no attempt to give him shape or chic. Each outfit ages him 10+ years.Worse still is that most of it was provided by Willy Bogner who was a world-clas skier who convceived and shot so many of those ski sequences. Someone chose the most shapeless jackets for Moore on purpose.
Nice shout-out to the tactile-neck Roger Moore is sporting.The morning suit for weddings seemed to be everywhere in the early ‘90s — at least for weddings in the daytime. The movie I usually associate them with is Four Weddings and a Funeral (duh), but 007 made it look cool a few years earlier.
I think Daniel Craig looks good in these movies but he tends to look better when he’s not wearing suits.
He’s the only Bond who looks out of place when dressed up. For all the others it seems like their natural state.
Which, to me, was always part of the appeal of his interpretation of Bond. The fact that Craig looks like he’s going rip through his clothes at any moment like the Hulk really underscores his more thuggish aspects.
I believe the films intentionally dressed him in suits that were too small in order to achieve that exact effect.
dunno… that tux in Casino Royale is lovely.
The tux is fine. But Craig doesn’t have that slightly aristocratic look or the accompanying bemused detachment that the other Bonds do.Don’t get me wrong, I like his take just fine, but there’s no denying it stands alone from all the other interpretations.
*my girlfriend has joined the chatroom*
His trunks are the ones that I like the best on men with good bodies. Everyone else should continue to wear the long baggy boring ones that are more popular now. Also if they have man boobs they should wear a shirt.
I don’t think the long baggy trunks look flattering on most men either. I think trim, above knee to mid-thigh swim shorts look better.
Yes, everyone overweight should hide their bodies in shame so as to spare you having to look at them.
Yeah! And fat chicks should board shorts over bikini bottoms and the loosest XXXXL rashie they can find!Am I doing this right?
That’s because they have Bond wearing Seppo suits by Tom Ford, and Americans cannot make a good suit. Full stop.Bond should be Savile Row suits and Jermyn Street shirst.
no mention of that stunning tweed suit in Goldfinger? Thats one of the most beautiful suits ever. It helps if you look like Sean, but still, it’s perfect. And we’re ignoring the tux in Casino Royale? It’s actually a character point, and one of the best scenes in the movie.
I shouldn’t whine so much – i actually loved this article. The clothes are one of the secret pleasure of the Bond movies. That pale blue shirt Daniels wearing in the car in the trailer for No Time to Die, with the tan jacket, is dreamy.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, it was tough to narrow it down to only a handful of looks, but I wanted the selection to represent a cross-section of outfit styles, and Bonds/eras of course (and even some of the bad outfits haha). If we were purely looking at a selection of the BEST Bond looks, that tweed suit and the Craig tux surely would’ve been part of it. I mean, I think Connery would’ve made up the bulk of the list, if I’m being honest!
This Inventory was so good, I didn’t even mind it being a slideshow.
thats fair – as a sample of the series, it was a really good read. But go on, give us your favourites! Top 3 at least…
And the orange wetsuit from “Thunderball”. Before I saw the movie I’d seen pictures of him in it and thought “I guess it’s true that if you’re handsome enough, you can get away with anything”, and I was very gratified when a character in the movie tells him the same thing. It should just be so stupid-looking, but wow. It’s not.
So probably not surprisingly there’s a whole blog devoted to this topic:https://www.bondsuits.com/tag/commander-of-the-cloth/If you’re discussing James Bond style from the perspective of suits (not his other wardrobe choices), Connery’s from maybe the first four movies are probably unsurpassed:Moore, being the Bond of the ‘70s and early ‘80s, could’ve fared a lot worse, but a lot of his suits hold up surprisingly well: As a contrast, look at some of Connery’s outfits in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, and you’ll see it could’ve easily been worse:
Dalton, whom I generally like very much as Bond, wore suits that tended to reflect the divisive trends of his era:
For example, the blog linked above describes this look rather disparagingly: “Timothy Dalton’s large-shouldered suits in his two Bond films in the
late 1980s brought more of the power suit look to Bond. His dark fine
worsted suits in Licence to Kill are the ultimate power suits, with linebacker shoulders, oversized cuts and low-gorge lapels.”Lazenby only did one film, so it’s hard to describe a Lazenby suit “style.” I don’t recall any particular one he wore being too objectionable. He was probably the most athletic Bond actor until Craig, and as the article points out when you’re in shape you can make most outfits work.As for Craig and Brosnan, I really don’t have much of an opinion – like Dalton, the best I can say is the suits are “of their time,” i.e. wider ties and lapels in the ‘90s and early aughts, narrower ones going forward. Of course, during this period the men’s business suit has generally fallen out of most men’s day to day wardrobes, so perhaps it’s not surprising that they’ve become a far less integral aspect of the character’s “style.”
Man, those ‘60s Connery looks really just set such a high bar. Love your insights on all of the Bonds’ distinctive styles! I’ve visited this Bond Suits site in the past, but I don’t think I realized how comprehensive it was until just now. I’m going to have to bookmark it for future reference!
I’m pleased to see they cover another one of Roger Moore’s iconic looks:(From https://www.bondsuits.com/infamous-clown-suit-octopussy/ .)
The thing that’s ironic about that whole sequence is that if you re-watch Octopussy, it’s actually one of the less ridiculous parts of the movie.
I should also note that while anyone can look at least adequate in a $3K tuxedo, you have to be veeeery secure in yourself to put on a clown suit, or go from James Bond to a needlepointing cat fanatic somewhere in the neighborhood of asexual-or-maybe-homosexual in 1980. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Hijack )
Men’s fashion after the mid-1960s fell off a cliff that it would take decades to recover from. Watching Mad Men in regard to the progression of Don’s work clothes is like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.
I love the suits in Mad Men, which makes it all the funnier when they have their weekend get together and they all turn up in the most hideous sports jackets.
Not just men’s fashion.I tried watching the 1978 version of The Big Sleep – you know, with a 60-something Bob Mitchum as Marlowe – and the fashion really killed it for me (as well as how bored everyone looked). Anything from the time the book was published to the 60s would’ve been fine…but man. 197os were a fashion war crime in general.I can’t find a woman a believable femme fatale if she’s wearing off-brown polyester pants and a vomit-green tartan rayon shirt with pearls, and a frizzy hairstyle that looks like it was style by a tropical lightning storm.
And not just fashion in general. Pea green, burnt orange and amber yellow were the prevailing colors for all modes of decor, often involving horrific plaid patterns. The entire decade (or at least the part of it that general consensus considers “the 70s”) exists as a cautionary tale for future generations.
Watching the recent “Halston” miniseries, I was reminded that oh yeah, there were some things I liked in 1970’s fashions but…sooo few. “Mary Tyler Moore” is literally one of my favorite all-time things, but the clothes…year after year…ESPECIALLY the men’s fashions, ALL of them…so ugly. SO ugly. HOW can everything be so UGLY???
Not one mention of Portofino cuffs on his shirts. Shame.
My favorite Dalton outfit is the tux from the beginning of LIVING DAYLIGHTS, which features a reversible lapel designed to ‘black out’ his white shirt when he takes up his sniper position. It’s a tiny detail and the scene doesn’t dwell on it, but it speaks to the film’s more serious take on Bond.
I liked that bit too. I put a strip of velcro in all my suit jackets.
I really like Connery’s golf outfit in Goldfinger, especially how it’s contrasted with the villain’s tryhard dorky suit.
That’s the worst hat I’ve ever seen. Hat like that should come with a bowl of soup.
Eh, it’s Sir Sean. He makes it work.
He looks like a bookie.
Just a comment, looking at Craig’s Bond, the really cut his hair too short for Skyfall, it just doesn’t suit him well.
Roger Moore’s black turtleneck is pretty GQ.
While Bond is an assassin, he’s also covert. He’s supposed to blend in to get in and out without being detected. His fashion choices have always reflected the era of the movie. Brosnan’s Tommy Bahama casual was to blend in. There was no way he was going to pull of looking like a local, so he went for tourist or maybe Ex-Pat chic.
Bond was never better than when he was in a romper:
Being too young to see this other than on Saturday afternoon TV, I assumed for a long time that this was normal 60s swim attire for men. I once asked my dad if he had an outfit like that and he looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
Yeah I get the impression that they were trying to make this a thing, and figured “Hey we’ll have Bond wear it, and make a killing selling them before the summer swim season,” but instead, Bond just looked like a dork.