Book Review: Fashioning James Bond by Dr Llewella Chapman
This indispensable book opens up the closet on six decades of Bond clothing. Like Bond with his fashion choices, Dr Chapman bends the rules, refusing to confine herself to a single gender. For once, it’s not merely the men’s garments garnering all of the attention.
If you’ll pardon the pun (and my paraphrasing of Charles Gray’s Blofeld), fashion has never been my strong suit. Although I have written quite a bit about fashion in Bond, including whole articles about tight-fitting t-shirts and Tom Ford, these pieces were among the most time-consuming to research and write. I have never claimed to possess fashion sense. Even now, if I end up looking anything other than shambolic when I leave the house it’s more by accident than design. The only clothing-related talent I possess is colour-matching. The collars, cuffs, tie, socks and - yes - underwear, always have to match. It might be talent or it may be a long overdue diagnosis of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. I’ll let you know when I get the test results.
Not possessing the knowledge - and the language - to be able to articulate my ideas about Bond clothing in my own writing, I always have to draw heavily on the expertise of others. Hitherto, Matt Spaiser and Pete Brooker have been my go-tos, although they almost exclusively deal with the clothes worn by male characters. What of the women? Well, despite her book’s title eponymously referencing our hero, Chapman does not limit herself to writing about James Bond’s clothing. The chief villains’ apparel receives just as much attention as does - gratifyingly - the girls’. And Chapman doesn’t hold back from highlighting several outfits’ apparent androgyny. For instance, Bond’s own blue towelling playsuit in Goldfinger is of a cut “typically worn by women”. As Chapman observes, Bond is not averse to bending the rules of fashion.
For all of that ‘men want to be him, women want to be with him’ nonsense, the world of Bond is invitingly non-binary. Unfortunately, outside of the Bondiverse, the either/or obsession which grips our society is reflected in the way most clothing is sold. Walk into most high street stores catering to men AND women and you can spot the men’s department long before you see the writing on the wall (‘MENSWEAR > upstairs’… because it’s nearly always upstairs). You can see it from a mile away because most of the men’s garments will be uptight and uninspired, especially when it comes to the use of colour.
In all honesty, I’ve never been that keen on clothes’ shopping. It’s something I’ve got into more as a result of reading about Bond clothing and visiting Fleming’s Mayfair haunts. But it’s still not as exciting as, say, perusing the shelves of a secondhand bookstore for Pan paperbacks and Fleming first editions. Fortunately, shopping in men’s departments is a fairly painless process for me: I simply make a bee-line for the handful of items which are brightly-hued, eschewing the racks upon racks of greys, blacks and navy blues.
I do own a couple of suits which are vaguely reminiscent of Bond’s, along with several screen-accurate casual pieces (such as Daniel Craig’s navy blue Sunspel polo shirt). But while I see myself in Bond (because who doesn’t if we’re honest?), I don’t see a great deal of overlap in our wardrobes. My favourite item of Bond clothing is not an item worn by 007. It’s my ‘women’s’ Octopussy silk robe, and it’s my favourite not just because it is 1 of a limited edition of 107. I love it because it’s absurdly comfortable and empowering. It makes you feel like you can take on the world and win - looking fabulous as you do so.
If teenage David could see thirty-something David in his Octopussy robe, he wouldn’t recognise himself. Growing up, I was infuriatingly unadventurous. I was stuck in a weird sartorial space, always selecting clothes that wouldn’t make me stand out while also making it clear I wasn’t following the crowd. Cheap, comfortable jeans and baggy sweatshirts were my standard ‘uniform’ throughout Sixth Form. I rarely wore anything ‘fashionable’ and any photos of me from the late 90s make it look like I was auditioning for the job of Top Gear presenter - and a particularly badly-dressed one at that.
Looking back, I don’t think I was aware of my fashion faux pas. I just didn’t see the need to wear nice clothes and I rarely noticed them on others. Fashion was definitely a blindspot.
We all approach Bond with different lenses. This website was borne out of my frustration at the the decades-long silent treatment that most queer aspects of my favourite franchise had endured. Were Bond commentators afraid to look for them or were they just blind to the possibilities? I had seen Bond through my queer lenses for years, so why was no one writing about the queer aspects I thought were all too visible?! For anyone to write about Bond as a straight man navigating an unambiguously heteronormative world has always appeared to me to be somewhat myopic, if not downright cycloptic.
So it’s intensely refreshing to find a book about Bond which takes a more inclusive view. When I asked Chapman about widening her purview to encompass men’s AND women’s clothing side by side she told me: “I've always found it weird how there seems to be an 'either/or' situation going on and I was like: 'I can't see the reason why, hell, I can't do both!'”
And indeed, there is no reason not to - besides the sheer amount of work that was surely involved in putting this book together.
The level of scholarship on display here is quite astonishing, particularly in the Connery chapters, for which considerable digging was required and no doubt a great deal of frustration: Chapman acknowledges that several ‘puzzle pieces’ had been lost, intentionally or otherwise, making her efforts to assemble a coherent narrative even more challenging. But coherent the book is, even for casual Bond fans. Chapman bookends each film’s analysis with a succinct summary of its production history and critical reception, making it accessible to all. And to my great relief she provides a glossary for the fashion noobs like myself who can just about tell the difference between a bottom and a top (don’t go there), but struggle with terms I’m sure most are familiar with, like ‘plackets’ and ‘sleeve heads’.
But it’s probably the Bond aficionados who will get the most out of the book. Think you know everything? Well, think again.
By delving through more than a dozen different archives and poring over countless production documents, Chapman has made some fascinating discoveries. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that there was a massive pay differential between the male and female crew members who worked on the costumes, with the latter being the worse off. But even I was surprised to learn the differential extended to the outlay on the men’s and women’s clothing itself. Is the Bond series the only film franchise where the men’s costumes receive such a vastly disproportionate share of the budget? And how did some of the costumes worn by women, which have since become some of the most iconic in the whole of cinema, only cost so little?
Chapman’s three research themes receive roughly equal treatment: agency (who made the decisions about what ended up on screen - the truth is often surprising), labour (who did the work, their praises often unsung) and costume (including the meanings attached to the finished articles). With my own background in semiotics (relationships between symbols and concepts), I felt most at home when reading Chapman’s insights into the significance of certain patterns, shapes and colours and what these revealed about the characters. Even so, I’ll hold up my hands and admit that I had never realised Tiffany Case’s two-toned bikini was intended to signify her dual allegiance. But in my defence, please remember that I AM a gay man and rarely pay all that much attention to bikinis.
Diamonds Are Forever receives more than its fair share of attention - a decision I strongly endorse of course. Although Chapman is less celebratory of the Camp aesthetic than myself, she’s clearly having a great time writing about the film. I thought I knew everything about Diamonds but even I didn’t make the connection between Plenty O’Toole in the pool and a very famous 19th Century painting. And although it doesn’t have anything to do with clothing, I am grateful to Chapman for including an excerpt from the screenplay (a scene not filmed or filmed and lost) in which Wint and Kidd salvage some enjoyment from having to sit through Shady Tree’s stand up routine by eyeing up a twinky drummer.
Chapman has a keen ear for any dialogue sequence which features fashion metaphors (Bond and Tatiana on the train in From Russia With Love, the ‘collars and cuffs’ exchange in Diamonds Are Forever, etc). And while she seems to share in some commentators’ disdain for Bond’s alleged fashion mistakes (the double denim in Live And Let Die IS a divisive) she’s not averse to making fun of fragile masculinity (see the discussion of Sanchez’s ‘manly’ pink shirt in Licence To Kill and Dalton’s disgust at being presented with ‘pastels’ by that film’s costume designer).
The exception to the otherwise chronological progression from Dr. No to Spectre is chapter 3, which is a self-contained interlude thrillingly exploring the highs and lows of using the Bond brand to shift merchandise in the 1960s. Amongst the discoveries is a bizarre 1963 lipstick advert featuring Charles Gray and directed by Guy Hamilton just prior to him helming Goldfinger. At the heart of this chapter is the story of Burton’s ill-fated Bond range. Chapman told me the research for this took her from reading menswear trade papers in London’s British Library to heading north to Yorkshire to see the Montague Burton collection for herself. Without giving too much away (you’ll have to read it for yourself), menswear giant Burton’s, which only ceased trading on Britain’s high streets in 2021, enlisted the help of Connery’s tailor to make affordable suits which were a visual match for those worn in Goldfinger and Thunderball. The decision to kill off the range prematurely was taken after the bosses got cold feet. In today’s world, it’s hard to imagine a high street chain even attempting to sell Bond-branded suits, especially when today’s 007 Store almost exclusively pushes premium brands (with premium prices to match).
Also well-documented, at the appropriate points, are the various spats between competing tailors, as well as the story behind EON’s falling out with Brosnan-stalwart Brioni following their unlicensed production of a Bond suit (complete with Q-like gadget pockets!) following Casino Royale.
Chapman treads a fine line between reporting factually on her discoveries and providing her own commentary. While I don’t concur with all of Chapman’s interpretations of characters I read as queer (is the homosexuality completely stripped out of the film’s version of Scaramanga?), we’re nearly always on the same page. There is a chance that some of your favourite costumes may not be featured, especially if they only appear for one or more scenes on a relatively insignificant character. My beloved Jim Fanning’s bowtie doesn’t get a look in for instance. Nor do Necros’ blue swimming trunks warrant coverage, although considering their own almost-indecent lack of coverage this is perhaps not surprising. There’s really not much to be said about a pair of budgie-smugglers, is there? Those who appreciate Bond Boys as well as Bond Girls will be relieved to hear that Daniel’s Craig’s gender blue trunks DO make the cut (or should that be 3 inch inseam?).
Had the book been any more exhaustive it could have proved exhausting. As it stands, it’s just the perfect length. While it’s the sort of book you can happily read from cover to cover, as I did, it will be one that will prove to be a useful reference work for years to come - for men, women and those who are both, or neither.
You can order the book directly from the publisher (Bloomsbury) here:
Fashioning James Bond: Costume, Gender and Identity in the World of 007
View the book launch here.
Find Dr Chapman on twitter here.
