A Black Double-Breasted Dinner Suit Made for The Man with the Golden Gun

Until Spectre came along, The Man with the Golden Gun was the only James Bond film in which Bond wears an ivory dinner jacket as his sole dinner jacket. However, it could not take the place of Bond’s number one look: a dark midnight blue or black dinner suit. For uses outside the frames of the film, Roger Moore’s tailor Cyril Castle made him a black wool and mohair-blend dinner double-breasted suit in a style similar to his other suits in The Man with the Golden Gun. Moore wears this jacket in promotional photography for the film, giving him the ultimate James Bond look.

Beyond the promotional stills, Roger Moore also wore this dinner suit to the premiere of The Man with the Golden Gun at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on the 18th of December 1974. Roger Moore often wore his dinner suits from his Bond films to their respective premieres, but a London premiere, especially in December, is not the place for the ivory silk dinner jacket. Moore luckily had a fresh option to wear to this premiere and did not need to re-wear his more flamboyant dinner suit that featured in Live and Let Die stills and that film’s premiere.

It is possible that this suit could have been made as an alternative for any number of scenes in The Man with the Golden Gun. The mannequin in Scaramanga’s funhouse would have looked even more the part of James Bond if it were dressed in a black dinner suit rather than a black suit. Other scenes could have been written to feature Bond black tie. If the nightclub in Beirut where Bond watches Saida dance were more formal, a dinner jacket could have been appropriate there. But in that case, the ivory silk dinner jacket from later in the film would have been a better option than the black dinner suit and the black dinner suit could have made an appearance for dinner with Hai Fat instead to avoid repetition.

If the Macau casino were more formal and Bond visited at night, he could have worn a dinner suit like Bond does in a Macau casino in Skyfall instead of his grey silk suit. If Bond’s dinner with Goodnight were set more formally, the dinner suit could have been an option for that scene instead of the charcoal herringbone suit. The Bottoms Up club would likely never have been a fancy enough venue for black tie. Because many other James Bond films feature multiple black tie scenes, a second black tie scene could have been written—or shoehorned—into The Man with the Golden Gun to feature this black dinner suit. But with all the silliness present in this film, the writers may have felt another black tie scene a step too far.

This double-breasted dinner jacket is made in the classic button two, show three style (6 on 2) with a narrow wrap and has wide black satin-silk-faced peaked lapels cut with belly. The buttons are covered in black satin silk. The jacket has the same cut and style as Cyril Castle’s other suits’ jackets in the film, with soft shoulders and gently roped sleeve heads, a full chest with an extended front dart, and deep double vents that start almost as high as the waist. The jacket is detailed with slanted jetted pockets and flared link-button cuffs.

The dinner suit’s trousers have a flared leg and black satin silk stripes down the outseams. The top of the trousers is not seen, but they are likely the same style as Moore’s other Cyril Castle trousers with a darted front, pockets at the bottom of the waistband and two rear pockets.

Moore wears the same shirt with this dinner suit that he wears with the cream dinner jacket in the film. The shirt, made by Moore’s usual shirtmaker Frank Foster, is made of cream silk crepe de chine and has a very high spread collar, a pleated front with mother-of-pearl buttons down the placket and two-button cocktail cuffs. The placket is stitched close to the centre to give focus to the middle of the shirt and to make the width of each side of the placket from the stitching the same width as the pleats.

The bow tie in the stills is the same wide black satin silk butterfly bow tie that Moore wears with the ivory dinner jacket in the film. The bow tie at the premiere is even wider and could be the same wide bow tie that Moore wore to the Live and Let Die premiere. At the Golden Gun premiere Moore also wears a white pocket square tucked into his jacket’s welt breast pocket.

In the promotional stills we can see Moore’s black patent leather loafers, which have an apron toe, a strap and side bit detail and tall heels. These shoes, despite being in patent leather, are a non-traditional style for black tie, with the apron toe being the most significant offender. A plain-toe slip-on is a better non-traditional shoe for black tie because it more closely resembles the traditional pump.