The Spread Collar

Posted on 26 April 2013 by Matt Spaiser

Turnbull & Asser spread collar

The standard collar amongst the English shirtmakers is the spread collar, and it’s the collar Bond wears more often than not. If it’s wider than a point collar and narrower than a cutaway it’s safe to call it a spread collar. A moderate spread flatters almost everyone and is always a safe choice. They’re great with a suit and tie, with a dinner jacket and bow tie, or open, as long as the collar isn’t too wide.

Frank Foster moderate spread collar

Turnbull & Asser made a wider spread for Sean Connery, whilst Frank Foster typically made a rather moderate—but tall—spread for Roger Moore. Sulka made a smaller, moderate spread for Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye, and Turnbull & Asser made a similar spread for Tomorrow Never Dies. For The World Is Not Enough they made a wider spread, and Brioni continued with the wide spread for Die Another Day. Daniel Craig wore Brioni shirts with a more moderate spread in Casino Royale and a similar collar from Tom Ford in Quantum of Solace.

Apart from the obvious differences of length, height and spread width, there’s the matter of tie space. It’s the quarter-inch to half-inch—or more—space between the collar leaves where the collar meets at the neck. Bond’s spread collars almost all have tie space, with the exception of the Brioni spread collars and Roger Moore’s brown stripe, double-button-collar shirt in Live and Let Die. Even with a very wide spread, a little tie space will help the knot to stay in place. Without it the knot often slips down and reveals the collar band above it because the collar leaves will push down the knot. A collar band with tie space is usually angled so the band will not show above the knot. Tie space plays just as large a roll in how large a tie knot can be worn with a collar.

Brioni spread collar with no tie space

Shirt Darts

Posted on 18 March 2013 by Matt Spaiser

Darted Turnbull & Asser shirt in From Russia With Love

Darts on the back of a shirt are currently more popular than ever now that people like wearing their clothes tighter. When darts are used, two are typically placed at the back towards the sides. They start above the waist and may extend down to the bottom of the shirt or as far as needed. Most often shirts are shaped as much as possible with the side seams and back darts are used when needed. Traditionally darts are not used on men’s shirts, but can often be found in both the backs and fronts of women’s shirts. But it’s completely acceptable for men to have darts on the back of their shirt for a more shapely and less blousy look. Darts are rarely found on ready-to-wear shirts because the closer fit they provide is very specific to the person wearing the shirt. However, they can easily be added to the shirt if taking in the side seams is not enough.

Turnbull & Asser put darts on Sean Connery’s shirts because of his large drop rather than for a close fit. Without darts, a shirt on someone as athletic as Connery would be much too large around the waist. Connery’s shirt also shows that pleats and darts on the back can work well together.

Darted Frank Foster shirt in Octopussy

Frank Foster used darts for George Lazenby and Roger Moore’s shirts to achieve a closer fit. Foster fits his shirts much closer than most English shirtmakers, but the clean, streamlined look is perfect for James Bond. The back is shirred under the yoke for fullness across the shoulder blades, and the darts take in the fullness at the waist. Daniel Craig’s dress shirt in Casino Royale is darted, and his Tom Ford shirts in Quantum of Solace and Skyfall are also darted.

Darted Tom Ford shirt in Quantum of Solace

Turnbull & Asser Shirt Patterns

Posted on 7 February 2013 by Matt Spaiser

Turnbull & Asser’s main shop at 71-72 Jermyn Street

Whilst visiting Turnbull & Asser in July, employee Steven Quin brought some James Bond shirt patterns out of the archive to show me. Though they didn’t have Daniel Craig’s pattern on hand, they had two other Bond actors’ patterns.

Pierce Brosnan’s Pattern

Above is Pierce Brosnan’s pattern, showing the body and various collars. Though not shown in the picture, also included in Brosnan’s pattern envelope was a cocktail cuff pattern, in the same style as Connery’s cocktail cuff. They said Brosnan had a cocktail cuff shirt made for his personal wardrobe, though he didn’t wear one in any of his Bond films. Most of his shirts in the Bond films had Turnbull & Asser’s standard double cuffs

Sean Connery’s Pattern

Though Turnbull & Asser no longer has Sean Connery’s pattern from the 1960s, they were able to show me his pattern from 1982, which would have been made for Never Say Never Again. Above you can see the button-down cocktail cuff pattern on the bottom right. Above the cuff are a collar band and two different collar patterns, the lower one being very similar to the Classic Turnbull & Asser collar. The upper collar was the one used mostly in the film, though the lower one may have been used as well.

And pictured below, in a corner at the bespoke shop, is a James Bond wall featuring three of the Bond ties that can still be purchased. Beneath the ties are two signed photos.

James Cook at Turnbull & Asser Bespoke

Posted on 5 February 2013 by Matt Spaiser

In July I visited the Turnbull & Asser bespoke shop on Bury Street off Jermyn Street. The bespoke shop has been there for about forty years after it was moved from the downstairs of the original Jermyn Street store next door, which has been there since 1903. I spoke with longtime Turnbull & Asser employee and James Bond fan James Cook on his work with Lindy Hemming as well as his opinions on what a well-fitted shirt is and why men should care about their appearance.

James Cook

Matt Spaiser: How long have you been with Turnbull & Asser

James Cook: I’ve been 17 and a half years.

MS: An you’ve worked here and New York?

JC: So I started in ready-to-wear and then basically looked after the ties there. Turnbull & Asser is all hands on, everyone gets involved. So with that, and then came into bespoke and went to New York two years and then came back again to London. And to Japan and Europe. Turnbull & Asser is very much, as I said, hands on so everyone gets involved in everything.

MS: What do you do in bespoke?

JC: Set up customers, just look after the clientele, really. We don’t really have titles at Turnbull & Asser. I take out the rubbish at night but also serve customers.

MS: You’ve basically trained here.

JC: Everything started in ready-to-wear to learn the basics, on standard product. The ties are all handmade, and the shirts. You have to go the factory to understand all the processes and understand the customer and the customer’s needs. Then we have a certain kind of clientele. We have a sort of regular visitor so we have to understand them. Basically you have to be like a mini-concierge at the same time, understand the local area, assist them. It’s a very personal experience for the customer.

The Fitting Room

MS: On to the Bond films, what kind of role did you have?

JC: Lindy Hemming, who was the costume designer for quite a few of the films, as I was getting older being more involved they asked me to help for assistance for purchasing items for the film. So basically all the bad people in the film Die Another Day, I was helping get the clothing. Lindy Hemming and the film, they know what they want to go for, and then we have to find the pieces. So I was assisting—that’s how Lindy Hemming asked my managing director can I go to Pinewood to see the film being made. She knew I was interested in James Bond. And I got to be in the film as an extra.

MS: That’s great. So do you know much about the history of James Bond and Turnbull & Asser?

JC: Terence Young, he was the first director, was a customer. He was in the Irish Guards. And actually Cubby Broccoli and Saltzman, they also became customers. But Terence Young, because he was a customer at Turnbull & Asser anyway,…and people like David Niven and Terence Young used to have that cuff [2-button turnback cuff], so they introduced it to Sean Connery for the first film, Dr. No.

So all the villains have shirts made by Turnbull & Asser and we’ve done the ties as well. But now, at Turnbull & Asser we always charge for everything we do. We don’t give away things for free—In this modern world of giving freebies, promotion. Since Lindy Hemming has stopped doing the costumes, they’ve gone to other companies.

But some say Ian Fleming may have been a customer. We’re not truly sure because we never kept an archive years ago. It never seemed that important. Obviously today people like to know all the history. I imagine he was. He was based in this area, so I wouldn’t be surprised.

Master Shirtmaker David Gale, with his shirt patterns

MS: What to you is a well-fitting shirt?

JC: To me a well-fitting shirt is a shirt that basically feels comfortable, look clean, has a good collar. It just has to fit over the body. I don’t think it needs to be super tight, I just think it should be comfortable. That’s when you know it’s comfortable, when you’re not thinking about it. To me that’s a well-fitting shirt. But James Bond, he always wears his jacket since he is a gentleman. Years ago a gentleman would never take off his suit and tie. In today’s world it has come and gone, but a man would always look well dressed. That’s why I think men like James Bond, because he’s elegantly dressed. He can mix with all types of people.

MS: With an off-the-peg shirt, should people get them altered?

JC: If you’re lucky to fit into a ready-to-wear shirt, the it’s fine. But it’s worth altering a jacket, to waist the jacket. Nothing should be too tight and uncomfortable, but everyone should pay attention to their appearance. It shows discipline. To make yourself look a bit sharper it speaks volumes. Ian Fleming was in the navy, and even as a civilian he would be a bit more formal and smart because it’s that self-discipline. It’s having respect for yourself.

Lindy Hemming: Blue and Brown for Brosnan

Posted on 14 December 2012 by Matt Spaiser

How much should a man match his clothing for the day? Sean Connery’s James Bond wardrobe follows a simple system: navy ties with navy suits, navy or black ties with grey suits, and brown ties with brown suits. Shirts are white, light blue and cream. And the suitings are simple, in blue or grey with the occasional brown. The literary Bond has an even simpler system of dressing, which always matched a black knitted tie with a navy suit.

Lindy Hemming, the costume designer on all four of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films, developed a system for dressing Brosnan, one with very carefully planned outfits that coordinate in both obvious and subtle ways. Hemming often used limited colour palates but combined the colours in unique ways. She incorporated the not-so-common combination of blue and brown into many of the outfits, and we saw that done in a few different ways. In one method she matches a charcoal suit with a navy and brown tie. We first saw that in Tomorrow Never Dies with the two-piece suit in Hamburg (above left). The diamond-pattern tie also picks up the light blue in Brosnan’s shirt. In the opening scene of The World is Not Enough, we see the blue and brown tie come back in a chevron pattern with the charcoal suit (above right). That suit appears to be solid charcoal but it actually has blue and brown threads in it, which is the reasoning for the tie’s colour. Logically, the suit in Tomorrow Never Dies would also have blue and brown threads.

The chevron tie from the opening scene of The World is Not Enough returns later in the film with what appears to be a medium grey suit. But upon a closer look, that suit is made up of blue and light brown yarns (above right). When those two colours in the right tones—opposites—are combined, they balance each other and the overall result looks grey. With this suit later in the film, Brosnan wears a blue tie with light brown ticks, also pulling out the colours in the suit. A white shirt helps to neutralise the suit’s colour, since if he wore a blue or cream shirt, one of the suit’s other colours would have been more noticeable.

Similar to the light blue and brown suit in The World is Not Enough, Brosnan wears a blue and sand Prince of Wales check suit (above left) for his visit to the office in GoldenEye. The blue and sand colours again balance each other and the suit looks almost grey. Here the tie is blue and light brown, to emphasize the two dominant colours in the suit. Though the tie is more blue, though the ivory shirt balances that out with more warmth. And the blue pocket handkerchief coordinates with both the suit and tie.

One suit we see in all four of Brosnan’s is the semi-solid (usually Birdseye) navy suit, which tones the navy down with a white. Hemming probably finds that Brosnan looks better in a muted navy rather than a rich navy (which looks great on someone like Roger Moore), and she accessorises those suit in two different manners. In GoldenEye (above left) and Tomorrow Never Dies (above middle), those suits are worn with ivory shirts. In GoldenEye the tie is navy, gold and cream, whilst the tie in Tomorrow Never Dies is a similar combination of navy and bronze. And there he goes a step further by matching the bronze in his tie with a light brown overcoat. In Die Another Day (above right), Brosnan wears a tie of navy and gold squares with his navy pinhead suit in a brief plane scene. So again, we see that combination of blue and brown tones.

Before Brosnan, James Bond had never matched his clothes so carefully. But like Connery’s Bond wardrobe, we see consistency throughout Brosnan’s Bond films. As a graphic designer I have a great appreciation for the Lindy Hemming’s colour matching, though it makes Bond look like he’s trying too hard. Should James Bond—or any man—match his clothes so carefully?

Never Say Never Again: Dinner Suit

Posted on 31 October 2012 by Matt Spaiser

Sean Connery wears a well-cut black, notch-lapel, button one dinner jacket in Never Say Never Again. For such a grand occasion peak lapels should be in order, but Bond isn’t usually one for being the most formally-dressed in the room. Nevertheless, he still is far better dressed than Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer). Largo dresses similar to the original, played by Adolfo Celi, in a white double-breasted dinner jacket, but wears a black shirt and has none of the elegance of the original villain’s clothing. Back to Connery’s clothing, the dinner jacket is tailored with natural shoulder and has jetted pockets, double vents and 3-button cuffs. The buttons are black horn. The dinner suit’s trousers have a flat front and a satin stripe down the side.

with the Turnbul & Asser shirt

Connery’s shirt has a spread collar, placket with onyx studs, and single-button cocktail cuffs that button down. The shirt is made by Turnbull & Asser, though he wears a Frank Foster shirt in at least one shot. The Frank Foster shirt can be identified by its narrower placket with stitching close together down the middle. Foster is the inventor of the button-down cocktail cuff that we see here, first worn by Roger Moore in an episode of The Saint. The bow tie is black satin in a classic thistle shape, and Connery wears no waist-covering. The shoes are black derbys that appear to be well-polished calf leather and not patent.

with the Frank Foster Shirt

Dinner Suit on Ice

Posted on 27 September 2012 by Matt Spaiser

Pierce Brosnan’s last Brioni dinner suit of the series in Die Another Day is the same button one peak lapel jacket that costume designer Lindy Hemming always dresses Bond in. The midnight blue dinner jacket is cut with straight shoulders and a clean chest, but with a rather straight cut through the body that’s flattering to Brosnan’s figure. The jacket is classically detailed with jetted pockets, four buttons on the cuffs and no vents. The lapels and buttons are covered in black grosgrain silk. The trousers have a flat front.

Even though Brioni made the regular shirts for this film, the dress shirt is probably from Turnbull & Asser. What tells me this is Turnbull & Asser’s double cuff, which has the link holes placed close to the fold, whilst Brioni puts their link holes in the middle. The shirt has a spread collar, a fly placket to cover the buttons and small pleats on the front. Brosnan wears a black ribbed silk, thistle-shaped bow tie. Brosnan follows the classic Bond tradition and wears neither a waistcoat nor a cummerbund with this dinner suit.

Light Grey Suit in Las Vegas

Posted on 3 September 2012 by Matt Spaiser

Apart from the wider lapels and pocket flaps, and the removal of trouser pleats, little has changed in Sean Connery’s clothes from Dr. No to Diamonds Are Forever nine years later. Even the cloths have stayed the same, like the light grey tropical worsted. Though it’s not the most formal suit, grey stands out a bit much in Las Vegas and the desert, whilst Connery’s more casual cream linen suit he wears later in the film looks more appropriate for the setting.

This button 2 suit cut by Anthony Sinclair has natural shoulders, roped sleeveheads and a cleaner chest than what Sinclair made in the 1960s. The pockets are slanted with flaps, there are 4 buttons on the cuffs and there are deep double vents at the back. The trousers have a flat front and button-tab side adjusters.

Connery wears a cream poplin Turnbull & Asser shirt with a spread collar and 2-button cocktail cuffs. The black tie is from Turnbull & Asser as well and has a ribbed weave, with ribs of varying widths. Like the grenadine ties that Connery most often wears, this tie is also solid and still has plenty of surface interest. See my navy version of the tie to the left to see a close-up picture of the tie’s ribbed pattern. My tie is 4 3/8 inches wide, probably a similar width to Connery’s tie. He wears black socks and black cap-toe oxfords, except when on the bike he is seen wearing brown monk-strap ankle boots.

The Suits of James Bond

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