For country pursuits there’s nothing better than a tweed hacking jacket. This jacket from Goldfinger is made up in a brown barleycorn, which looks like a pattern of upward-pointing arrows. A detailed diagram of the fabric can be found in my article for almost identical hacking jacket Roger Moore wore in A View to a Kill. Traditionally cut with slanted hacking pockets, a ticket pocket and a long single vent, it was designed for horseback riding. Bond wears this with light brown narrow cut, flat front wool cavalry twill trousers with frogmouth pockets and plain hemmed bottoms. On his feet is the quintessential country footwear: brown suede shoes. These are derby shoes, very similar to chukka boots in a style John Lobb Ltd. calls hilo shoes. They look just like chukka boots in the front, but they are cut lower like derby shoes. Effectively, they are chukka shoes.
The same jacket and trousers appear again in Thunderball (see picture below). In Goldfinger he wears an ecru shirt with double cuffs and a light brown knit tie. In Thunderball he switches that out for a shirt with 2-button turnback cuffs and a dark brown grenadine tie.
First off, very good blog. I am glad someone did it! I admire the clothes in the early Bond films and had thought of doing a similar analysis, however your knowledge excels my own. I will be following this with interest : )
Good observation with the re-used wardrobe. I was watching Thunderball a few weeks ago and noticed that they used the same brown blazer and trousers. I'm glad – the films were released one year apart and it would be an awful waste of beautiful clothes. It makes sense that the character would keep some of the same suits. I think there was another suit carried across between Goldfinger and Thunderball – was his dark grey 3 piece at the end scene of Goldfinger the same as the one seen in the opening of Thunderball?
David C
*exceeds my own.
The dark grey flannel suits at the end of Goldfinger and beginning of Thunderball are very similar though different suits. The jackets are just about identical. The trousers in Thunderball have turn-ups whilst the trousers in Goldfinger don't. The biggest difference is in the waistcoats. The Goldfinger waistcoat is a normal 6 button with 5 to button, whereas the Thunderball waistcoat has a full 6-button front and is cut straight across the bottom.
Matt,
I believe these are not boots, but suede oxfords (or derbys, cannot tell). One can see this best in the scene were Bond briefly sits on the trunk of Tilly Masterson's car after she has run off of the road in Switzerland.
S
S, you are correct. They are derby shoes, though they are very much in the spirit of chukka boots. These shoes have typically been called chukka boots, even in Dressed to Kill: James Bond the Suited Hero. I've changed the article to reflect this.
A favorite of mine. A nice example of how to dress rather casual but still very elegant.
I prefer this style over the suit-without-a-tie look and the quite popular combination jeans and suit jacket.
This outfit still works perfectly 50 years later.
I’ve not seen cuff links like the ones in the second picture. It is as if they are backwards with the toggle on the front. If one were to wear a French cuff with links while horse back riding, I suppose these are a sensible choice.
http://thesuitsofjamesbond.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hacking-Jacket-Barleycorn.jpg
It’s hard to tell from the film, but these cufflink probably look the same on both sides. Cufflinks back then were typically two pieces linked together with a chain, so no toggle. A cufflink of this type is easy to slide in and out of the holes. I have a very similar pair of cufflinks to these.
I too have puzzled about the cuff links before because, as has been said, the exposed part looks like the inner toggle of a traditional silver chain linked set. I can finally confirm this is the case as you can see Bond is indeed wearing his cufflinks ‘inside-out’ so to speak, in this picture of him entering his Aston Martin at Stoke Park Golf Club.
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk1/Rich5ltr/Public%20images/HackingJacket2_zps04d186b9.jpg