Richard Kiel’s indestructible Jaws returns in the second half of Moonraker after crashing through a circus tent during the pre-title sequence. He wears the same outfit over the course of a couple of days on his way to Rio de Janeiro and in Rio. He must have packed lightly for his assignment, but considering his size, his clothes must take up almost twice as much luggage space as the average person’s.
Jaws gets four looks out of this one outfit. He wears the complete outfit for flying, including a jacket and tie. In the 1970s, dressing formally for flying was still common, and Jaws dresses like the professional he is. When he reappears in Rio, the tie is gone and he looks more relaxed and tropical with an open shirt collar. When it’s time to get to work, he removes his jacket for a complete range of motion as he boards the roof of the cable car. This iconic look of Jaws in shirt sleeves and clip-on braces was revived from the Egyptian temple scene in The Spy Who Loved Me. He also wears the same shirt, braces and trousers under his purple Carnival costume. When fully dressed in his jacket and tie, Jaws comes across as tasteful and elegant. As he loses the layers of his outfit, he looks messier, deranged and goofier. Jaws himself may be indestructible, but his clothes symbolise that his spirit is not.
The navy jacket is made of a smooth, shiny, lightweight cloth that suggests a silk blend. Considering it’s the 1970s, the cloth could be a polyester blend, but I would think that Jaws is well=paid and can afford silk. The jacket is bespoke, since ready-to-wear would be impossible for someone of Richard Kiel’s size, and the jacket fits quite well. The jacket is cut with soft shoulders and capped sleeve heads. There are two buttons on the front in a medium stance, and the lapels are about 4 inches wide, but they are a medium width across the chest. The jacket is detailed with slanted hip pockets with flaps, double vents and two buttons on each cuff. The jacket’s buttons are navy to match the jacket rather than metal buttons that would make it a true blazer. Overall, the jacket’s style still holds up well today and does not look dated to the 1970s.
The trousers are made of taupe wool and are cut with a darted front, slanted side pockets and a slightly flared leg. They have a wide waistband with extension that fastens with a hidden hook and has Daks-style button-tab side-adjusters at the sides.
Despite the side-adjusters, Jaws wears clip-on braces to keep his trousers up. The clip-on braces are there to revive the familiar look from The Spy Who Loved Me, where they made sense with Jaws’ telephone repairman disguise, but in Moonraker, they are slightly at odds with Jaws’ taste for fine tailoring outside of the former disguise. Clip-on braces may have been chosen over button-on braces either to give Jaws a lower-class appearance or because they couldn’t acquire button-on braces in Kiel’s size. Clip-on braces do not support the trousers as well as button-on braces do, making the trousers look sloppy. Jaws’ narrow braces are black with a triple interlocking diamond pattern in light grey with a thin line connecting each grouping of diamonds.
Jaws’ light blue shirt is made of lightweight, high-sheen cotton, signifying a fine cotton with a high thread count. The shirt is extremely wrinkled, which makes Jaws look more oafish, but fine cottons like this are prone to considerable wrinkling. It’s clear that he has been wearing this shirt for multiple days in a row. The state of his clothes only gets worse after the cable car crashes through the building and he ends up in the rubble. The shirt has a large point collar with long points and a high stand, rounded one-button cuffs and a front placket. Bond-series shirtmaker Frank Foster made shirts for Richard Kiel. This shirt is not their usual style, but they sometimes make shirts in styles other than their house style, especially when costume design is concerned.
The tie that Jaws wears at the airport with this outfit has a fashionable pattern of wide stripes in shades of blue, grey and black, with narrow pairings of white stripes on the black. The tie is narrow compared to the lapels and shirt collar. It is tied in a four-in-hand knot that is rather small for the shirt collar, due to the tie being too narrow for Richard Kiel’s tremendous size. With the tie, Jaws looks tastefully dressed and presentable, especially compared to how he looks in shirt sleeves.
When Jaws walks through airport security, he carries a tan cotton trenchcoat or raincoat from Burberry’s over his arm, recognisable by their signature Nova Check lining in tan overlaid with an intersecting grid of black, white and red stripes. The Burberry’s trenchcoat is a prop to show that Jaws is a man of classic taste.
Jaws’ shoes are black with a rather clunky shape. Without bespoke, Richard Kiel likely had few options for shoes, and they’re possibly made-to-order. His socks are also black.
The trenchcoat/raincoat was probably just for show, enhancing Jaw’s character as a man of classic taste during the airport scene, as it looks much too small for a man of Richard Kiel’s size. Perhaps he borrowed it from Roger?
It does make one wonder if Burberry’s offer coats at 8XL. Somehow I doubt it!
Ahah well spotted. He could probably only use it as a scarf !!
While the jacket, trousers and shirt look pretty well proportioned, it’s a pity the tie and braces especially aren’t. Could have been fixed easily.
It is odd, isn’t it? Maybe they could only find extra long ties in a narrower shape, and considering he doesn’t wear it for long it they didn’t consider making a custom one worth the expense. Yet I feel like those ’70s kipper ties, which would have looked normal on him, would have been available in extra long lengths…
I wish they had not leaned into the goofiness and instead focused more on the derangement. Leaving Jaws in one outfit that gets more and more disheveled, while a good idea, is a bit of a missed opportunity in the execution. He is a hired gun brought on basically at the end of Drax’s scheme and thus not a true believer and, as shown in the film, not part of Drax’s future for humanity. The film could have focused in on this to set up the turn a bit more. As Matt said, the disheveled look of his clothes showing his spirit getting worn down. This may have required some further alterations of the story, but it could have been interesting.
But alas, that’s not what happened and, given the film’s weird tonal inconsistencies, maybe that is for the best. The jacket does look like it fits him quite well and maintains his imposing presence while he is wearing it.
Lee, I completely agree with you. I mean the movie goes in directions that are decidedly not grounded, but all the goofy sight and audio gags and such are probably the worst part of Moore’s movies that take things a bit too far in the silly direction. Even Bond going to space and shooting laser guns could have “grounded” a bit more had they played things a little more straight faced. A shame because this movie genuinely has some excellent music and special effects in it.
Fully agreed. This film was a low point in the canon for me and they turned Jaws from a genuinely frightening adversary in TSWLM into Wile E Coyote in MR. Another missed opportunity where they went for cheap laughs instead of pivoting towards adult action / spy / drama which took a long time for their eventual arrival.