The Button Three Lapel Roll

Posted on 1 December 2012 by Matt Spaiser

The most traditional number of button for the front of a suit jacket is three. But there are a few different ways the lapels can be cut and sewn to control the way the lapel rolls. On inexpensive, fully-fused suits, the lapels don’t roll and are pressed flat above the top button. This is something that James Bond never wears. The opposite of that style would be the “3-roll-2″ style, where the lapels act just like on a button two suit and roll down to the middle button. The top buttonhole is also finished on the reverse side, since that’s the side that is visible. This style is most commonly seen in American sack suits, but it’s not limited to that cut. Cary Grant famously wore that style in North By Northwest, and Bond wore it in Quantum of Solace (pictured below). Some see it as an affected style since the top button can’t close, but it’s a well-established classic.

The most common type of button three amongst well-made jackets has the lapel gently rolling from at or just below the top button. Most of Bond’s button three suits are in this style. It looks very elegant with only the middle button closed, but the top can be closed as well. We first saw this style on Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. George Lazenby fastens both the top and middle buttons (pictured below), and the top button breaks the roll. If he only fastened the middle button, the lapel would roll through the top button. Sean Connery’s button three sports coats in Diamonds Are Forever have similar lapels, but he only fasten the jacket at the middle button. Roger Moore wore a few suits in this style made by Douglas Hayward in the 1980s with a lower button stance, and Timothy Dalton wore a navy pinstripe suit in this style in The Living Daylights. Pierce Brosnan most famously wore this style made by Brioni throughout all of his Bond films (pictured top). Daniel Craig’s Brioni suits in Casino Royale followed in the same 3-button style, though a more fitted cut meant that the lapels spread open a bit wider. Every Bond after Lazenby fastens only the middle button, which is usually—and most effectively—placed at the waist to act as a fulcrum for both visual balance and to match where your body pivots. The latter is especially important for action since a button that is placed too low or too high would be restricting.

Daniel Craig’s suits in Skyfall (pictured below) also have a lapel that rolls from the top button, as you can easily see when the jackets are unbuttoned. But because the jackets are so tight the chest is pulled open more than it looks like it was designed to be. The revers are shown a little bit below the button but not all the way down to the middle button like on the Quantum of Solace suit. If you look at the image of the buttoned suit below you’ll notice that the lapel roll ends at the top button and below that it is just pulled open because it’s too tight.

A lapel that rolls needs canvassing to give it shape and body, which is why some makers just sew canvas in the lapels and fuse the rest of the front. The amount of roll is controlled by the cut of the lapel, where the lapel is attached to the collar and how the innards of the suit are constructed. And a lapel roll isn’t just limited to the button three jacket. Sean Connery’s button two jackets had elegant rolls, especially starting in From Russia With Love as the lapels got narrower. In comparison, Roger Moore’s button two jackets had more typical, flatter lapels.

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.

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.

Tailoring for the Times: Sean Connery and George Lazenby

Posted on 26 July 2012 by Matt Spaiser

Every Bond has made some fashion concessions to the times they lived in, and some have more than others. In this series of articles we’re going to take a look at each Bond, comparing the subtle nods to the times in his tailoring as well as the more obvious ones. But this assessment won’t be considering the classic elements that come in and out of fashion, like pleated versus flat front trousers. Casual clothes, which are far more influenced by the times, won’t be discussed here.

SEAN CONNERY (1962-1967)

1. Narrow lapels: They were slightly on the narrow side in Dr. No, but starting in From Russia with Love the lapels became the narrow ones commonly associated with the 1960s. And with narrow lapels comes narrow pocket flaps. Menswear designer and writer Alan Flusser wrote, “The lapel of a well-styled suit should extend to just a fraction less than the halfway mark between the collar and shoulder line.” All other lapel widths are measured in comparison.

2. Tapered trouser legs: Anthony Sinclair tapered his trousers in a military fashion, though they were tapered quite dramatically. A full thigh (Connery had large thighs) tapers into narrow bottoms.

2-button suits had becomes something of a fashionable element in the 1960s in comparison to the more traditional 3-button suit, but 2-button suits had already been around for years so it’s difficult to count it as something of the times. By the late 1960s they had become the standard and have been in that position ever since, so it’s not something we think about being fashionable now. But it was still no fashion extreme since 1-button suits and 4-button suits were far trendier at different points in the decade.

The cut of the jacket takes elements from a number of English styles, with its full, draped chest, soft shoulders and suppressed waist. None of that can be attributed to any decade. As for other wardrobe elements, Connery popularized cocktail-cuff shirts. That style saw its greatest popularity in the 1960s though it was not something popular enough to become dated since. And since tie width goes along with lapel width, that will not be mentioned going forward.

GEORGE LAZENBY (1969)

1. Shorter jacket length: Lazenby’s suit jackets were slightly shorter than the standard English jacket, a trend that saw some popularity in the 1960s. But unlike the modern fashion, the jacket isn’t short enough to draw attention to its shorter length.

2. Narrow-leg trousers: Narrow-leg trousers were also popular in the 1960s, and, compared to Connery’s trouser leg, Lazenby’s trouser leg fit closer through the thigh. Still, others at the time were wearing even narrower trouser legs.

3. Additional flair: Some of Lazenby’s suits had steeply slanted hacking pockets, a part of the 1960s’ “Peacock Revolution” to which Lazenby’s deeper vents and more rounded quarters can also be attributed.

But for the most part, Lazenby wore classic, close-cut English suits with softer shoulders than the typical Savile Row suit has. His trousers had a lower rise than Connery’s but not at all low by today’s standards. His most dated piece are the two ruffled-front dress shirts.

SEAN CONNERY (1971)

1. Wide lapels: Connery’s lapels are now on the wide side, and thus his pocket flaps are wider too. The 1970′s doesn’t have monopoly on wide lapels; they were popular for a good portion of the 1930s as well.

Everything else is pretty much timeless. Trouser legs are still tapered, though not as much as before. Connery’s pleats from before are also gone, and flat-front trousers had become much more fashionable by the late 1960s. Both pleated and flat-front trousers are equally classic.

Sean Connery’s narrow lapels and George Lazenby’s closer cut have been very popular since the mid 2000s, though designers like Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren are trying to bring back a look similar to what Connery wore in Diamonds Are Forever: a classic cut width wider lapels. In the next article we’ll take a look at the increasingly wide lapels, as well as the return to classic style, in an assesement of Roger Moore’s fashion choices.

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.

The English Straight Shoulder

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Matt Spaiser

The tailors on London’s Savile Row and its neighboring streets are known for making many types of shoulders, from Anderson & Sheppard’s sloping shoulders to Huntsman’s strong, built-up shoulders. But the most popular style seems to be the lightly padded straight shoulder that follows the natural shoulder line. They are typically made only as wide as the actual shoulder, though some tailors extend theirs a little to help the sleeve hang straighter. Cyril Castle, Roger Moore’s tailor in his first two Bond films, and Dimi Major, George Lazenby’s tailor for Bond, both tailored their suits with this style shoulder. Both tailors make their shoulders with minimal roping in the sleevehead. The shoulder has a middle-of-the-road look that’s well-suited to most builds.

The First Cream Suit

Posted on 6 August 2011 by Matt Spaiser

Connery had established Bond’s suit as either grey or blue, with the occasional brown. But George Lazenby’s first suit as Bond is none of the above. It’s a cream linen suit, appropriate for a warm resort in Portugal. Lazenby’s Bond is introduced with a more fashionable and rakish suit, with a more suppressed waist, a shorter jacket length, a more rounded front skirt opening, slanted pockets, deeper double vents and flat-front trousers.

The jacket has a 2-button front and swelled edges. The sleeves have the then fashionable touch of only one button. The buttonholes are sewn with a darker, contrasting thread. The narrow-cut trousers have a plain bottom and no break. Bond wears a pink shirt with a moderate spread collar and button cuffs. His navy knit tie is a familiar piece that Connery wore occasionally in his Bond films. Bond’s shoes are off-white slip-ons.

Wedding Attire

Posted on 17 November 2010 by Matt Spaiser

For the wedding of James and Tracy Bond, James Bond wears a form of semi-formal day wear called “black lounge,” known to the Americans as a stroller and to the Germans as a Stresemann. It is worn the same way as morning dress except a lounge coat replaces the morning coat (cutaway coat to the Americans). Bond’s coat is most likely black, though there sometimes appears to be a hint of blue. The coat has peak lapels and buttons two. Traditionally this type of jacket has only one button, like the typical morning coat does. The cuffs have 3 buttons and there are double vents at the back.

The waistcoat is grey and has 6 buttons, and the trousers are in a matching grey. Traditionally trousers worn with this type of outfit are the same as with morning dress: stripeed or checked, only in black, white and grey. Bond’s shirt is white with a spread collar and double cuffs, and the tie is a light blue-grey satin, tied with a Windsor knot. Bond wears black slip-ons, though the traditional shoe would be an cap-toe oxford or balmoral, shoe or boot. Whilst the traditional hat for such an outfit would be a black Homburg or bowler, Bond brings along a navy blue trilby. And since it is his wedding, Bond wears a white carnation in his lapel.

The Suits of James Bond

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