Original article published 29 May 2012
I am in the process of rewriting and republishing old articles about James Bond’s outfits that need a refresh and expansion. All former comments are preserved below.
When shopping for a wedding ring with Tracy at Rossio Square in Lisbon, Portugal in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and again later when purchasing the ring, George Lazenby’s James Bond wears a light blue lightweight tropical wool suit. The light blue suit had come into fashion in the 1960s. Unlike the flat powder blues that were popular in the 1970s, Bond’s suit is a more sophisticated melange of colours to soften the blue and give the cloth more dimension and visual texture. A good light blue suit can also be a semi-solid pattern like pick-and-pick (sharkskin), birdseye, nailhead, a fine check, or anything else to avoid the 1970s look of flat light blue. The light blue suit has recently returned to fashion, and it’s often found in melange cloths like this one, particularly in linen blends.
This suit appears to be light blue on screen and in stills from the film, but it could potentially be light grey. The film’s colour skews blue overall, making it difficult to be certain of the suit’s true colour. In the scene where Bond returns to the store to purchase the ring, the suit looks blue, which leads me to conclude that it is blue rather than grey.
The light blue suit is ideal for sunny days in spring and for summer, when other light-coloured suits—such as tan and cream suits—are worn. Light blue is a fun summer suit colour for leisure, unlike the light grey of the summer business suit, though in some settings the light blue suit may also be appropriate for business. Light blue suits of seersucker and pincord are often found in the American South, where they are appropriate for business. Bond’s light blue suit helps him subtly stand out on screen, which is helpful in the distant shots of people walking down the street. This suit is only visible in the film in these brief shots, but closer photographic stills were taken of the suit inside the jewellery shop.
The suit is made by Dimi Major of Fulham, London, with straight and lightly padded shoulders, natural sleeve heads, a full chest, a suppressed waist, and a flared skirt. The front of the jacket has three buttons in a medium stance. The notched lapels are narrow, with the break a couple of inches above the top button for a small opening and a short lapel line. The lapels then roll through the top button and down to the middle button, which is the only button fastened. As a result, the jacket has a longer vertical line down the front than is usual for Bond’s tailoring. It has almost the silhouette of a button-four jacket, which was popular a few years earlier in the mid 1960s.
The jacket has long double vents, straight hip pockets with flaps, swelled edges and one-button cuffs. The latter two details contribute to a sportier look, confirming that this suit is meant for leisure rather than business. The fashionable one-button cuff style is repeated from the ecru linen suit in the film. The configuration of this suit’s details does not match any others in the film, but very few jackets in the film share the same details as another, making the wardrobe more interesting.
The suit trousers have the same silhouette as the rest of Bond’s suit trousers in the film. The leg is straight and narrow with plain hems that are slanted with no break. The details are not visible, but they likely match the rest of the suit trousers with a darted front, slanted side pockets, and a classic English-style waistband that has an extension, a hidden hook-and-bar closure and Daks-style button-tab side adjusters.
The shirt is white, likely in cotton poplin or voile. Very few shirt colours pair elegantly with a light blue suit, especially if one wears a tie with the suit. The shirt has a short semi-spread collar and double cuffs that are too wide for the trim jacket sleeves. Frank Foster made most of Lazenby’s shirts for this film, and they might have made this shirt, though it’s an unusual shirt, both for this film and with this suit. Nowhere else in the film does Bond wear a double-cuff shirt with a suit—he saves them for black tie and for his black lounge wedding outfit. Because the suit is rather sporty, the double cuffs are an odd choice, but they are not entirely inappropriate. This shirt may be the same one that Lazenby wears in the photos taken at the lamppost across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster, in which case the clothes were not made for the film’s wardrobe.
The dark tie is difficult to identify from how little of it is visible, but it’s likely the same navy silk knitted tie that Bond wears with other outfits in the film.
The shoes are black, and they’re likely the same slip-on shoes that Bond wears for the wedding scene since that scene was also filmed in Portugal. Those shoes have elastic side gussets and a plain chisel toe. They might also be the same slip-on shoes that Bond wears in London, which have a strap over the vamp.
Now Pay Attention
| SUIT | |
| Tailor | Dimi Major |
| Fabric | Light blue tropical wool |
| JACKET | |
| Front buttons | 3, medium stance |
| Lapels | Narrow notch with swelled edges |
| Shoulder | Lightly padded with natural sleeve heads |
| Breast pocket | Welt |
| Hip pockets | Straight with flaps |
| Vents | 2 |
| Cuff buttons | 1 |
| TROUSERS | |
| Front | Darted |
| Support | ‘DAKS Tops’ 3-button side-adjusters |
| Front/side pockets | Straight side pockets |
| Rise | Medium |
| Leg | Straight and narrow |
| Hem | Plain |
| SHIRT | |
| Shirtmaker | Possibly Frank Foster |
| Fabric | White |
| Collar | Semi spread |
| Cuff | Double |
| Front | Unknown |
| TIE | |
| Brand | Unknown |
| Fabric | Navy silk knit |
| Knot | Probably Half Windsor |
| SHOES | |
| Shoemaker | Unknown |
| Style | Black, probably a slip-on |
I’m not so fond of the high 3 button stance on this suit. The 2 button cream color one (https://www.bondsuits.com/?p=138) appeals more to my eye but I do like the color of this and it suits Lazenby. Just a pity it’s seen so fleetingly. The color matches an Aquascutum suit I once had in linen and was very fond of.
The excellent book “the making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” by Charles Helfenstein shows a closer look. It has 1-button cuffs, swelled edges and the shirt has double cuffs.
A very 1969 look!
The book gives great details on the suits (e.g. slip-ons and detachable collar for the wedding).
Thanks Eric. I have the book, and I’ll look at it more closely. The wedding outfit I could tell from the film, though the shoes are similar to the short chelsea boots that Connery sometimes wore.
Nice suit and a great post. I almost missed this one in the movie, and I agree with David that the button stance is too high but it does fit Lazenby. His suits are really quite nice and distinct from Connery’s, somehow combining stylishness, traditional British touches, and a modern look. Like all things related to the great 1969 Bond epic, Lazenby’s wardrobe is very underrated and overlooked.
Christian,
I couldn’t agree more regarding OHMSS in general and Lazenby’s suits in particular. The light blue suit in question reminds me a bit of the one Roger Moore wears in the hotel scene with Maud Adams in TMWTGG. The cut is different, but the colors are very similar. Pity suits in that color are hard to come by these days.
I agree with the other commenters regarding not being enamoured of the high button stance but otherwise being highly admiring of this and Lazenby’s other suits. I actually bought a suit of a very similar colour two summers ago inspired by this suit. I do wish the scene that was cut where Bond and Tracey are seen shopping for the ring would be made available to fans as a DVD/Blu-ray extra.
Unfortunately, given it’s a nearly 60-year-old film, there’s a good chance the footage no longer exists.
I absolutely love this look. I got myself a light blue herringbone linen blazer and its one of my most complimented looks. I took some notes from Daniel Craig and paired them with navy chinos. ;-) Thanks Matt for making an update on this light blue suit.
Good to see this suit review revived as I love the colour, and like other posters I always thought it deserved a bit more screen time than we were given, so assume that there was more that was left on the cutting room floor.
The lapels are curious – rare to see early Bond in a three button despite them being in vogue during the sixties. The right hand lapel breaks clearly above the top button as Matt notes, but the left hand lapel seems to roll more smoothly and directly down to the button. If I owned this suit I’d be tempted to fasten the top button too but some deft pressing could make the jacket a little less ambiguous and more clearly defined as either a hard three or a three roll 2.5!
(I don’t think we ever saw Bond in a ‘hard three’ until the cream cotton suit in the early scenes of NTTD).
Light blue suits are a great warm weather non-business option. I own one in powder blue-grey mohair sharkskin worn with white/ blue butcher stripe shirt and dark red grenadine tie, and another in sky blue glen check wool/silk/linen worn with white pique shirt and blue/white/navy striped grenadine tie. In either case a solid navy grenadine would work fine too and be a bit more Bondian.
I really dislike the steeply slanted pocket flaps on display on other suits in OHMS. IMO they ruined an otherwise exemplary grey PoW suit worn while stealing documents from the lawyer’s office, so I’m happy to see this one with flat pocket flaps. The long vents are an indication of what was to come in the seventies. That’s another feature I dislike and along with the flared jacket skirt they contribute to disagreeable flapping of the jacket around the bum which can be seen in Matt’s second picture above.
OHMS was probably the last film in the canon with suits that I would like to wear myself until the Brozz-Brioni era in the late nineties.
The suit in No Time to Dies isn’t even supposed to be a hard 3. It’s a 3-roll-2 that Bond has buttoned oddly at the top. The interesting thing about most of the button-three jackets in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is that they can look good buttoned at the top or not. We see Bond button the true hacking jacket at the top, and it looks good that way.
Yeah I have a couple of suits that are cut in such a way that the lapel roll would work equally well with either one or two buttons fastened. I usually default to fastening two, but there are times when I really like the ‘symmetry’ of a 3B with only the central button closed and the button and button holes visible both above and below the fastened central button.
Those Craig era 3B suits where the top button and hole are hidden behind the lapel are completely pointless to me!
I’m curious why some people have this opinion. Is not the bottom button equally pointless since it’s not meant to be fastened either? Because if we go down this path of cursing any fussy details for being useless, lapel holes, sleeve buttons, etc. are just as unnecessary. Hell, the tie is unnecessary! We wear these things because we want to, not because every single detail is still useful.
It’s true that we don’t want to go down the route of pure utility in how we dress – using that logic we should all wear matching jump suits.
The bottom button, though not meant to be buttoned, provides visual balance. Likewise, the canvassing, though not visible, provides the structure to the flattering shape. Almost all of the features of tailoring are useful; useful for making the wearer look good. I suspect this is the reason, probably subconsciously, that the 3 roll 2 irks some folks. It may be throwing off the visual balance of what appears to be a regular button 2 with no other benefit to justify it.
I don’t believe the bottom button of two buttons is necessary for visual balance, as well-cut single-button jackets don’t look unbalanced. I could argue that the top button of the three-roll-two could also be there for balance. The three-roll-two is not traditionally cut like a button-two.
Fair enough regarding a button one jacket, but with emphasis on “well cut.” With button two jackets, 90% of the time if you just removed the bottom button, it would look slightly off.
And similarly, I should have clarified that I was talking specifically about the Craig era O’Conner jackets, which to my eye look to be cut no differently than a plain two button jacket.
Giselle’s point stands though, we don’t want to start interrogating the utility of all the features of tailoring. Apart from making the wearer look good, few have any real utility and could be removed. But then we would have very boring clothes.
There is a difference in the cut of Craig’s O’Connor jackets versus one with two buttons. The lapel is cut like a full button-three, but the gorge is cut and sewn in a way that makes the lapel roll through the top button. It creates a more complex curve at the base (or perceived base) of the lapel than a button-two jacket has.
I think my point may have been missed here.
My objection to the detail in some of Craig’s ‘alleged’ three-button suits is because the top button and top buttonhole are all but invisible. Thus my objection is not about utility or lack thereof, it’s more what’s the point of a detail that’s not even visible (or barely visible at a stretch). I don’t even consider them 3B jackets as the button and hole can’t be seen. They’re essentially 2B jackets with some very minor invisible detail.
Still it’s all just opinions. If some people like this detail rock on. I personally hate them!
Ah, I understand now then. I just think they look neat, but I wouldn’t get a three roll two button front on all my jackets.
“Hell, the tie is unnecessary!”
For a spy a tie can be useful to strangle someone, or it can be used to hide something like a cyanide pill or dollar bills or whatever. It can also be used for warmth, or as a belt (cf. Fred Astaire), et cetera. And a pocket square can be useful as a secret map if you piss on it.
Ahah don’t forget the usb key/microchip cufflinks either !
Yes, and you can have a mic or camera hidden in a tie pin, alternatively in the studs for Black Tie.
This gave me a laugh.
Mission accomplished :-)
There used to be a tie salesman on Styleforum who would extol the virtues of wool ties for their ability to keep your neck warm in the winter. I can honestly say in my six decades I have never in my life looked at a tie with the thought of its utility as a neck warmer. Do people really think like this? Is the concept of a scarf entirely alien to them?
Valid point Rod, do feel free to wear a wool tie in the Florida summer.