Draco: Black Lounge

Posted on 13 May 2013 by Matt Spaiser

Marc Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti), the father of the bride, wears the most traditional version of black lounge at James and Tracy Bond’s wedding. Draco’s button one lounge coat has notched lapels, flapped pockets, three-button cuffs and no vents. The shoulders are straight with roped sleeveheads. The waistcoat matches the jacket in black and has six buttons with five to button. The trousers are in the traditional cashmere stripe pattern, cut with a flat front and most likely worn with braces.

M wears a less formal ensemble with light grey trousers and a cream shirt, and without a waistcoat

Draco’s white shirt has a small spread collar with mitred barrel cuffs. Whilst a striped tie isn’t the traditional choice for a wedding, the colour scheme is right with black, silver, white and pink and is perfect for the occasion. The stripes go in the British direction, from lower on the right-hand side to higher on the left-hand side. The shoes are black, and most likely they are cap-toe oxfords. With the rest of the wedding party, Draco wears a white carnation in his lapel.

Blofeld in Astrakhan Fur

Posted on 25 December 2012 by Matt Spaiser

On Christmas Eve morning in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Blofeld greets the girls outside wearing a British warm in light brown herringbone wool with a collar and lapels faced in light brown astrakhan fur. An astrakan-trimmed coat is a bit over-the-top for James Bond, but it is perfect for a villain, for whom nothing is ever too extreme. The British warm is a double-breasted, knee length overcoat. It usually has six buttons with three to button, as Blofeld’s does, though the fancy lapels and collar are not typical of a British warm. Blofeld’s coat has slanted pockets with large flaps on the front. Blofeld wears an astrakhan hat that matches the coat’s collar and lapels, and he also wears brown gloves.

The clothes Blofeld wears underneath the British warm appear to be the same as what he wears later during the battle at Piz Gloria. The brown zip-front jacket is made by Bogner, probably of an insulating synthetic material designed for skiing in. It has a short stand-up collar, vertical zip pockets on the front, a brown stripe on the sides and elasticised cuffs. Blofeld’s brown breeches match the jacket and are most likely made by Bogner as well. The legs extend a couple inches below the knee and tighten with a buckle. Underneath the jacket Blofeld wears a white mock polo neck jumper. He wears long, thick brown socks and brown suede-effect, rubber-soled ankle boots. The boots are most likely not real suede if the intent is to wear them in snow.

Bond stopped Blofeld’s plot and the world had a happy Christmas. I wish you all a happy Christmas.

The Blue Overcheck

Posted on 1 October 2012 by Matt Spaiser

In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service George Lazenby takes the black and white Prince of Wales check suit that Sean Connery often wore and adds a blue overcheck. The black and white check pattern part is slightly off from a typical Glen Urquhart check. The overall large check is taller than it is wide, as it typically is, but the finer horizontal lines are emphasized. The cloth is most likely woven in an even twill like the standard Prince of Wales check is. One interesting thing that tailor Dimi Major does is he rotates the cloth 180 degrees on adjacent panels. This can be seen by looking at the horizontal stripe sections in the pattern. On the lapels a white stripe in on top, on the front body panels a black stripe is on top and on the sleeves a white stripe is on top again. Some tailors match their checks this way instead of the more logical way of matching them in all the same direction.

The illustration below is the closest I can come up with to figuring out the atypical check pattern. Click the image to enlarge:

The button two suit jacket has natural shoulders, a clean chest and a close cut overall, with a shorter jacket length. The cut is in line with the current fashions of then and now, though unlike today’s fashionable suits this suit does not look shrunken. The jacket is detailed with three button cuffs, steeply angled hacking pockets with a ticket pocket and double vents. The double vents are deep and have an outward flare. The suit’s buttons are made of dark grey horn. The trousers have a flat front and narrow legs. This suit is full of late 60′s English flare and is the most fashionable suit Lazenby wears in the film. It’s the most fashionable we’ll see Bond until Roger Moore gets settled in the role.

The sky blue shirt made by Frank Foster picks up the blue windowpane in the suit. The shirt has a point collar and single-button barrel cuffs. The navy knitted tie has a soft, dull look with slight pilling that would suggest wool as opposed to the standard silk. The shoes are black.

Ruffles: This Never Happened to the Other Fella

Posted on 11 September 2012 by Matt Spaiser

George Lazenby is the only Bond to have the distinction of wearing a ruffled-front dress shirt. And he wears not one but two in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Roger Moore can be seen in a ruffled-front dress shirt in The Persuaders, and he wore one for some promo shots for Live and Let Die under a very nice double-breasted dinner suit, but Moore never actually wore one in a Bond film. Moore and Lazenby used the same shirtmaker, Frank Foster, and he made their ruffled-front shirts. The dress shirts both have a point collar, double cuffs and mother-of-pearl buttons down the front placket. The backs are darted and the shirts fit very close around the waist. Apart from his brown casual outfit, the ruffles are the only part of George Lazenby’s wardrobe that looks dated today.

Lazenby in Black Tie

Posted on 7 September 2012 by Matt Spaiser

September 5th was George Lazenby’s 73rd birthday. In honour of that let’s look Lazenby’s peak-lapel dinner suit by Dimi Major. The dark, single-breasted, peak-lapel dinner suit is Lindy Hemming’s preference for Bond, and that’s what she always dressed Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig in for the five films she worked on. But before GoldenEye, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the only time Bond wore this style. Otherwise, his peak-lapel had all either been double-breasted or white, or both. Lazenby’s dinner suit is probably midnight blue, and that’s practically confirmed by the dinner jacket’s dark blue lining. The dinner jacket naturally buttons 1, and it has a clean chest and natural shoulders and is fitted through the waist. It is cut a bit short, following late 60′s trends. The jacket is detailed with double vents, 3 buttons on the cuffs and jetted pockets. The trousers have a flat front, a black satin stripe down each leg and a lower-than-traditional rise. The overall cut of this dinner suit is very similar to what Daniel Craig will be wearing in Skyfall, though none of the fashionable aspects are taken to the extreme. The jacket is closely fitted without being so tight that is creases. The jacket is shorter to lengthen the legs, but not so short as to draw attention. And the trousers have a lower rise, but not so low that the shirt is exposed below the jacket’s button. Lazenby’s dinner suit is tastefully fashionable and would look just as fashionable today as it did 43 years ago.

Lazenby wears the dinner suit three times in the film, with at least two different ruffled-front shirts from Frank Foster. I’ll discuss the shirts in more detail later. He wears a black satin silk thistle-shaped bow tie that matches the lapels. That’s probably done more for the filming and less for the character. He follows Connery’s tradition of not wearing a waist-covering. When we first see Lazenby, he is wearing a navy trilby with his dinner suit, a rather informal hat for black tie.

Light Blue Suit

Posted on 29 May 2012 by Matt Spaiser

The light blue suit has fallen out of favour, but it made one of its few appearances in the Bond series in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s a great suit for the warmer days of spring and for summer, and it is best in a pick-and-pick (or other semi-solid pattern) of blue and white rather than a solid blue. A solid blue might give the impression of the powder blue suits that were popular in the 1970s, but Lazenby wears a more sophisticated example when shopping at Rossio Square in Lisbon. Lazenby’s suit has a 3-button front with a clean cut, straight shoulders on the natural shoulder line, and double vents. It’s detailed with cran Necker Parisian lapels, swelled edges and one-button cuffs. Lazenby wears the suit with a white shirt with a spread collar and double cuffs, a navy knit tie and black shoes.

Alpine Skiing

Posted on 20 February 2012 by Matt Spaiser

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service puts Bond on skis for the first time. George Lazenby was not allowed to be on skis for insurance reasons, and all the skiing was done by Luki Leitner or stunt double Vic Armstrong. This film also started the series’ relationship with skiier Willy Bogner and his line of clothing. Bond wears a sporty, tight-fitting blue ski suit with a white knit shirt with a short polo neck collar underneath. The ski jacket is mid-hip-length with a short stand-up collar and a zip front. The zip fastener has the famous Bogner “B” logo. The trousers are tight-fitting for wind-resistance. With the ski suit Bond wears black gloves, black ski boots and a navy blue knit hat. According to the book The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Charles Helfenstein, Director Peter Hunt chose the blue ski suit because it was the same colour as the blue screen, and this would prevent the production from taking shortcuts by filming in the studio if problems arose. However, George Lazenby’s close-ups were most likely shot in the studio, perhaps using a different method.

Tick-Patterned Suit

Posted on 27 January 2012 by Matt Spaiser

As a part of his disguise as Sir Hilary Bray in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond wears a copy of Sir Hilary’s tweed 3-piece suit. This suit is made of brown tweed wool with a cream tick pattern and a rust windowpane. With the same softly-padded shoulder and clean, fitted cut as George Lazenby’s other suits, this suit was probably also made by the same tailor, Dimi Major. The suit coat has a 2-button front with classic hacking details, such as a deep single vent and angled, flapped pockets, but the jacket length is shorter than a typical hacking jacket. This coat has 3-button cuffs like in the rest of the suits in the film, and all the buttons are made of dark brown horn.

This suit’s waistcoat has a 6-button front, worn with the bottom button open. The trousers have double forward pleats with a narrow leg and turn-ups, similar to Connery’s suit trousers. The shirt is a cotton twill with a tattersall pattern in tan, navy and green on an ecru ground. It has a spread collar, plain front and single-button cuffs His shoes are mid brown wing-tip derby shoes. Bond later wears this shirt, these trousers and these shoes casually with a cardigan. The narrow tie is a navy repp with a large crest under the Windsor knot. I know nothing about heraldry, but the crest would have a special meaning to Bray. If anyone knows this meaning please feel free to share. Bond also wears Sir Hilary’s round tortoise-shell glasses.

In the previous scene, Bond wears an Ulster coat and more over his suit to stay warm outdoors.

The Suits of James Bond

Category Archives: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service