Kamal Khan: Dinner Suit

2 January 2013

Octopussy‘s Kamal Khan, played by French actor Louis Jourdan, is one of the best-dressed villains of the James Bond series. When he’s not wearing a villainous Nehru jacket he’s wearing well-tailored suits, and he dresses for dinner in a classic peak-lapel dinner jacket. The button one black dinner jacket has natural shoulders with roped sleeve heads, and it is cut with a little drape in the chest and gentle waist suppression. It has single-button cuffs, jetted pockets and no vents. The lapels are satin-faced and buttons and trouser stripe match the lapels. The trousers are cut with a straight leg.

Kamal Khan wears a pleat-front shirt with a spread collar and double cuffs, probably made by Frank Foster like Roger Moore’s is. It’s essentially the same shirt as what Bond is also wearing in the scene. He finishes the ensemble with a black satin silk, thistle-shaped bow tie, and a matching cummerbund.

9 COMMENTS

Victor Hoet 2 January 2013 at 15:20

A wonderful outfit, and a timeless classic. As you just wrote, most certainly the best dressed villain of the series. I do have one question, actually: are his cuffs’ single-buttons link-buttons (like on Cyril Castle’s jackets) ?

By the way, since you’ve displayed the same picture twice, I assume you meant to show this picture (to illustrate the shirt and tie) :
https://www.bondsuits.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Kamal-Khan-Dinner-Jacket.jpg

- Matt Spaiser 2 January 2013 at 21:41
  
  The cuffs are just regular cuffs with one button. Thanks for pointing out the image mistake. I’m not sure what happened there.
  
Hal 3 January 2013 at 12:52

Single buttons on the cuff seem a little odd to me. I know it was very Carnaby Street in the 1960s but that presumably isn’t the look that they were going for here. Aren’t more buttons standard on a dinner jacket?

- Matt Spaiser 3 January 2013 at 13:46
  
  The standard in England for any jacket cuff would be 4 buttons, with some tailors preferring 3.
  
J.Y. 23 April 2013 at 07:43

I recall he wore rather higher-heeled pumps with this outfit.

Sam batters 8 July 2013 at 00:10

Who was kamal khan tailor ?

Christian 5 March 2016 at 05:52

Having just watched this film (the most underrated Bond film in the entire series, the tiger hunt notwithstanding), Jordan’s dinner suit here has a nicely worn look. Makes me wonder if it was his personal clothing.

Le Chiffre 5 September 2018 at 23:44

Are the suit and the lapels both midnight blue ?

- Matt Spaiser 6 September 2018 at 00:25
  
  No, the suit is black, as I wrote.