Over his black herringbone peaked lapel three-piece suit, James Bond wears a black double-breasted bridge coat that helps him fit in with the gangsters at Sciarra’s funeral in Spectre. The coat from Tom Ford is made of lighter topcoat-weight brushed wool. It is in a button four, show four configuration and has an ulster collar with a buttonhole on each rever, slash pockets for hand-warming, a button-on half belt in the back, a rear vent and three cuff buttons. The coat is cut with straight shoulders and has set-in sleeves.
The bridge coat has military origins and is like a cross between a pea coat and a greatcoat. It is like a pea coat in most of its design but has the full below-the-knee-length of the greatcoat. Bridge coats, like pea coats, have a straight cut, but the bridge coat’s belt in the rear gives it some waist suppression. The belt on Bond’s coat takes in the waist significantly, but the cut of coat does not not have much waist suppression. Though bridge coats for the military have gilt buttons, Bond’s bridge coat is adapted for civilian use with black horn buttons. For a less gangster-esque look than a black bridge coat, navy is a great colour for a bridge coat.
Though the bridge coat and great coat are very similar, there are a few notable differences. Bridge coats have the buttons on the front in a rectangular formation, and those buttons are separate from the buttons under the collar. Greatcoats have the buttons in a keystone formation, and the buttons are spaced evenly up to the collar. Bridge coats, like pea coats, typically have slash pockets whilst greatcoats have straight or hacking flap pockets. Both often have a belt in the back. Daniel Craig’s double-breasted black overcoat in Quantum of Solace, by contrast to the coat in Spectre, is a greatcoat.
Daniel Craig’s Bond usually only fastens one button on his outer coats, and on this coat he only fastens the second button from the top. It is an odd way to fasten a coat for warmth, and it’s an odd fashion for someone who was once in the military.
With the bridge coat at the funeral, Bond wears the Tom Ford “Snowdon” sunglasses in the colour “Havana”, which is a mottled dark brown. The lenses look brown, but they are actually greyn. These sunglasses will be auctioned at the Spectre auction at Christie’s in London on the 18th of February and are expected to fetch £4,000 to £6,000.
Bond also wears black leather driving gloves with his bridge coat and black suit. The gloves are the appropriately named “Fleming” model from Dents. The glove has perforations on the outsides and insides of the fingers, gathers on the underside of the glove’s opening and a band that fastens with a popper on the topside of the glove’s opening. Bond later wears these gloves when he visits Lucia, but he does not wear them for their intended purpose—driving—during the car chase with Hinx.
I own a pair of those gloves and others from Dents. They blackened my hands for the first few times worn – but otherwise very comfortable. The fit is very snug on my hand apart from the thumbs. I got the thumbs shortened by about 1/4 inch. But generally Dents do great gloves.
Matt, I don’t know if you’ve seen this but there’s multiple daylight shots of the QoS Greatcoat in the 2012 Skyfall Heineken spot. This coats’s ulster collar is definitely more attractive in daylight than that one’s buttoning collar.
The Quantum of Solace greatcoat has a particularly ugly collar that isn’t typical of a greatcoat, or really any classic coat.
I agree – and for my taste there are far too many buttons on the front. Furthermore the fit is poor. The QoS coat is preferable.
The way he buttons it combined with the waist suppression to me makes it looks like he’s bending over backwards!
There’s really very little waist suppression, and the fit is quite good. The coat has a belt that is pulling the waist in. The buttons can be moved on the back to give the desired amount of suppression.
I disagree, this overcoat is far more attractive to me than the one in QoS. It has an overall more timeless design.
The shoulders look as they could be his suit jacket shoulders. Way too narrow.
Plus the overcoat itself is a bit too much. Any coat of any other Bond (Moore’s or Connery’s Chesterfield, or the so decried luxurious coats Brosnan wore) would have worked better, I think. Here, in the second picture, Craig looks like he is posing as Karl Lagerfeld !
For a good mob look at a funeral, I prefer Tony Soprano or Paulie Gualtieri !
It’s really incredible how Craig looks good in casualwear and terrible in tailored clothing. I think the reason is they use the same principle : very slim-fitting and close to the body cuts. But a suit jacket isn’t like supposed to fit like a polo shirt.
Craig is very fit in this movie, but he looks as a medium-size bodybuilding guy. Sometimes he even looks short, which he isn’t. Whereas in QOS and Casino Royale, he looked tall. And the Brioni suits, for all the critics they have accumulated, contributed to that, with their medium rise, wide leg, not-so-shortly hemmed trousers !
Actually, I am beginning to think Craig looked much better in Layer Cake. We don’t need a Bond who spends two hours a day in a gym club. Slimness isn’t antinomic with virility or handsomeness.
I agree with you about the suits in Casino Royale. While the QoS suits are Craig’s best, Casino’s suits are definitely second, and not just by default. Take away the heavily padded shoulder and I think they would look great. But at least they make Bond look confident and powerful, as opposed to small and uncomfortable.
I dont know… I think the “funeral-outfit” is the best formal outfit in Spectre. I know its all to fflamboyant for a Bond outfit, but keep in mind he is there in disguise. And for that, I belive he is dressed very appropriate.
As for the fit: The slim fit trend in tailoerd clothing has been so strong for the last years that they kind of “have to” dress Craig up in very tight fitting suits, otherwise the general public would look at Bond as outdated and poorly dressed. All of us fans of traditional mens style just have to wait it out. It has already started to change towards higher waits, wider legs and lapels and longer jackets. The wider lapels especially is already apperent in the funeral suit, by the way. But thats alsko a trademark for Tom Ford.
Could the one closed button on the front of Craig’s outerwear be intended to allow him quick access to his gun?
I can’t imagine he could get to his gun with even the one button closed.
No, but he is able to unbutton the coat faster with only one button closed.
My guess is that the coat is too tight to be worn comfortably over the suit if more than one button is fastened.
I like this coat for the scene here in theory, but not in execution. A fit like the coats in Quantum is preferable.
It is a very nice coat but it is odd that he only buttons one button, especially as mentioned by Matt, that Bond was military. Being military myself I particularly don’t understand it either when he can wear it properly. One of the things that is ingrained in you is attention to detail. As far as gun access, Bond can easily get a concealment holster that fits in his coat pocket though that would require the coat to not be so tight. He wears a shoulder holster and an IWB holster in Morocco so he uses different kinds of weapon concealment.
He looks like a caretaker. Or a wannabe yakuza/Karl Lagerfeld crossover (as @lechiffre says)
Craig after Casino Royale looks like he’s trying too hard.
It’s either the cut of the suit (too short/skinny), the collar pin, the tab collar, the pocket flaps, the tie knot, the peak lapel suit, etc. There is always a fashion thingee or some “just-look-at-me” detail that distracts. Compare with Connery’s understated but elegant and atheltic look. You look at Connery bond and you look at some that’s greater than the sum of its parts. You just see the whole thing. With Craig it’s always what’s this then?
He’s in disguise here as a mobster. We can forgive the “wannabe yakuza” look in this case.
One of the best topcoats in the whole series. Even though it was Bond in disguise, I could see Roger Moore wearing a navy one.
Matt, I may be wrong, but have you covered the casual outfit Craig wore in his hotel room in Casino Royale, while Vesper is asleep ? I presume you didn’t, that could be an idea for your future articles !
I’ve covered the pieces from it, but not the outfit together. It’s coming up shortly!
I have a similar completion to Craig and black isn’t the best color for me, unless I’ve gotten sun. And Craig is super pale here (odd, since he was just blowing stuff up in Mexico City).
I totally agree that QoS was the best fashion move in the series with Casino a close second. I’ve thought the suits in Spectre and Skyfall as looking like superhero outfit in the form of a suit — just too tight and, in Skyfall’s case, the odd color on the shirts didn’t work for me. However, with the exception of this black suit, I think the colors typically work great for both Craig and for the scene. Even this works for the scene — but it’s just too stark for my tastes.