You know that strip of fabric down the front of your shirt that you button through? That’s called a placket and can be found on almost all traditional English shirts. Traditional American shirts have them too. A placket might look a little rustic in comparison to the cleaner plain (French) front, but it adds stability to the front of the shirt. Aesthetically a placket makes the front of the shirt symmetrical. Bond’s formal and dress shirts almost always have a placket, the most notable exception being dress shirts (Tuxedo shirts) with a pique bib worn with studs. But not all plackets are the same, and the English have their own way of doing it.
Traditional shirts, from England or elsewhere, have stitching on the collar and cuffs 1/4-inch from the edge, and often that follows on the placket. But it’s common for Jermyn Street shirtmakers and other high-end shirtmakers in London to stitch their plackets closer to the centre than how they stitch their collars and cuffs. Turnbull & Asser stitches their placket 3/8 inches from the edge. And since the placket is only 1 3/16 inches wide, the stitching almost divides the placket into 3 equal sections. It is around the typical width for Jermyn Street plackets, though some are wider. Turnbull & Asser’s plackets on Pierce Brosnan’s shirts are the same as they were over 30 years earlier on Connery’s shirts.
Frank Foster—Roger Moore’s and George Lazenby’s shirtmaker—stitches his plackets in a unique style closer to the centre and just a little wider than the buttonholes. This allows the edges of the placket to flare out, which may or may not be desirable according to your taste. For On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the plackets are about 3 1/2 cm wide and stitched about 1 cm from the edge. In Live and Let Die the buttons are hidden under the placket, and the placket has one line of stitching down the centre. Starting in The Man with the Golden Gun, Foster’s plackets are 3 1/2 cm wide and stitched 1 1/2 cm from the edge.
Brioni’s plackets are the most common style. Their placket is wider than what English shirts typically have, closer to 1 1/2 inches like most American shirts. And like most American, Italian and French plackets, these follow the collar and cuffs with stitching 1/4-inch from the edge. Tom Ford’s plackets also have 1/4-inch stitching, though the overal width is closer to Turnbull & Asser’s.
The last image, on foot of the previous three, encapuslates it all perfectly. Well done Matt. Sometimes a picture really does speak a thousand words!
Do we have any info on the Brosnan cuff link? Throughout Tomorrow and The World he did use a few pairs that resembled each other (except for Bilbao). But I don’t know much about the DAD cuffs..? Is it Dunhill, Dupont etc.?
The cufflinks in Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day are made by Dunhill. Not sure about GoldenEye.
Great information, Matt. Details and background I never noticed before, thanks!
I just want to inform you that despite the frames of the film, the shirts worn by Brosan in Die Another Day are of Turnbull and Asser and Brioni, as you can also learn from the credits of the film.
Turnbull & Asser made the ties. They could possibly have made the dress shirt (for black tie), but the regular shirts are all Brioni.
I don’t think the visible placket adds much more substantial stability than a French placket – which is essentially just a hidden placket. I make shirts and I’ve made both sorts. Depending on how the hidden placket is contstructed, it’s just as stable.
As for the symmetry, well I agree with that. And I rather like the Frank Foster method of close stitching under the buttons. I don’t particularly like a placket with a bow tie, it tends to look too obvious.
I’m sorry, but I must insist. I am a journalist and I created a series of articles about Brosnan – 007. I had frequent contacts with Brioni and I can assure you that the shirts are worn by Brosnan Turnbulla and Asser.
Brijuni are only the ones in the package and on the bed in the hotel room scenes.
Turnbull & Asser said they didn’t make the shirts for Die Another Day. The collar, cuffs and placket are not at all characteristic of Turnbull & Asser’s shirts. They are, however, identical to what Brioni makes (I’ve seen them in person) and are the same as what is on the bed. Brioni may have had contractual reasons for not taking credit for the shirts. I could understand Turnbull & Asser making a custom collar design that copies Brioni’s wide spread collar, but I don’t believe they would make a placket and double cuff that differ from their standard. They didn’t in the previous two films. The dress shirt in Die Another Day, however, is an example of how Turnbull & Asser make their double cuffs.
I’m not convinced. After all the discussion is good for this, for comparison.
I absolutely reliable news, so I remain in my conviction.
Thanks to Chris Laverty of Clothes on Film, Lindy Hemming just confirmed the shirts are indeed from Brioni. But the dress shirt, I believe, is Turnbull & Asser.