As well as fulsome identification of the styles, cut and cloth associated with each different James Bond, the site - run by US designer Matt Speiser - has a fun blog post about the suits that Michael Caine wore as Harry Palmer. If you want to know the cuff style, suit fabric and pocket designs that make up the Harry Palmer look, this is the page to check out.
Sean Connery was a lorry driver from working class Edinburgh. When he was chosen to play James Bond in Dr NO, the first concern was how he should speak and the second concern was his dress. It was well known that Ian Fleming was using Savile Row tailors, and he needs convincing about James Bond’s dress. Fortunately ,Terence Young, the director of Dr No was ex-military and himself was interested very much in sartorial elegance, and he took Sean Connery to his own tailor, Anthony Sinclair in Conduit Street –off Regent’s Street.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.anthonysinclair.com/Heritage_s/1856.htm
http://www.anthonysinclair.com/Heritage_s/1856.htm
Since then, the shirts had interesting cuffs. Later, the shirts were obtained from Turnbull & Asser in Jermyn Street.
The dress for Bond was an important aspect of his character as Bond held the rank of commander in the navy, and in those days these military officers came from the upper class of the society. Hence also the need to speak in upper class English.
Juxtapose the above aspects with Palmer , a mundane civil servant, and the quality of tailoring and suits one would have thought was not important to a civil servant of his cadre. But , one can see the influence of Harry Saltzman, after he saw how the working class Sean Connery was transformed to gentleman James Bond through sartorial transformation. However, in keeping with the lower cadre civil servant status, no attempt was made to correct Caine’s cockney accent.