Apart from the wider lapels and pocket flaps, and the removal of trouser pleats, little has changed in Sean Connery’s clothes from Dr. No to Diamonds Are Forever nine years later. Even the cloths have stayed the same, like the light grey tropical worsted wool. The cool tone of grey doesn’t blend in as well with the Las Vegas desert as Connery’s more casual cream linen suit later in the film does. Grey has a more formal look than the cream linen suit does, which looks more appropriate for the setting. But light grey is dull enough to not stand out in the pale desert.
This button two suit cut by Anthony Sinclair has soft shoulders, roped sleeve heads and a cleaner chest than what Sinclair made in the 1960s. The pockets are slanted with wide flaps, there are four buttons on the cuffs and there are deep double vents at the back. The trousers have a darted front, on-seam side pockets, tapered legs with plain hems and a square extended waistband with a hidden hook closure and “Daks tops” button-tab side adjusters with three smoke mother-of-pearl buttons on each side. The trousers have on-seam side pockets and a jetted coin pocket on the right side under the waistband.
Connery wears a cream poplin Turnbull & Asser shirt with a spread collar and two-button cocktail cuffs. The black tie is from Turnbull & Asser as well and has a ribbed weave, with ribs of varying widths. Like the grenadine ties that Connery most often wears, this tie is also solid and still has plenty of surface interest. Roger Moore wore the same tie in different colours in The Persuaders. Click on the photo of my tie above to see a close-up picture of the tie’s ribbed pattern. My tie is 4 3/8 inches wide, probably a similar width to Connery’s tie. Connery ties his tie in a windsor knot.
He wears black socks and black three-eyelet derby brogues, except when on the bike he is seen wearing black suede strap ankle boots that look like that look like dark grey because they are covered in the desert’s sand. The boots are essentially a chukka boot with a strap instead of laces and resemble monk shoes. Both the shoes and boots are from John Lobb Ltd of St. James’s, London. The derby is their “Full Brogue V-Front” and the boot is their “Strap Hilo Boot”.
Read more about this suit in a comparison with the light grey suit Connery wears in Dr. No.
Matt, what is meant by a suit having a “clean” chest? Also, is a black tie appropriate for daytime business wear? My impression was that it was not.
Great post as always!
A clean chest if the opposite of a draped chest, meaning fitted with little extra cloth. Connery’s suits in the 60s had a very full chest.
A black tie can look a bit formal or even funereal for business wear, but it all depends on how you wear it. A Suitable Wardrobe has a great article on black ties.
Matt, what is the interest of a draped chest ? Does it make somebody appear to be a little stronger than with a cleaner chest ?
If so, Connery was rather fit enough in the 60s, but perhaps it was something typical of the 60s.
I suppose also that a draped chest works better, let’s say, on a man with James Stewart’s physique rather than Daniel Craig’s one. Am I right ?
And just a last question : I have just checked your article on the The Connery Bond Suit Jacket, in FRWL. I hardly see the difference in term of chest, but I am no expert. Perhaps the difference is about the creases, more important in a draped chest ? Or am I wrong ?
Thanks a lot.
Drape makes the person look stronger whilst also making the suit look more relaxed. A draped chest is good for Bond because it better conceals his PPK. Anyone can look good in a drape cut. There’s still some drape in the chest here, but I don’t see nearly as much here as in From Russia With Love. Drape is seen in the folds on the sides of the chest.
Matt, part of why I love your blog is because I’ve learned more tailoring terms and what they mean here than from clothing forums.
This post illustrates the point I’ve made before about Connery’s wardrobe palate; the predominance of greys. How many shades of grey suit does he wear in this film, for example?
Having said all that, this is an attractive colour although I tend to agree with the comments re; the tie colour choice. Again, typical Connery, limited to navies or blacks. A burgundy would work well with this type of suit and shirt combination.
You mention that the outfit stands out given the context in which it’s worn (a sports coat would have maybe fitted in better) which I do appreciate, however, I humbly submit that there are a number of other outfits in this movie which stand out far more (the ghastly pink tie, the perfectly nice ivory dinner jacket worn inexplicably to the casino and full dark dinner suit worn, even more inexplicably, to infiltrate Blofeld’s secret penthouse suite!) and not to overlook the simple fact that men of Connery’s Bond’s generation wore a lot of conservatively coloured lounge suits as a rule at that time (and nothing wrong with that either).
And don’t forget the countrified tweed jacket and turtleneck in Las Vegas!
That outfit made no sense at all!
Like most of “Diamonds,” sadly. 007 gets revenge for Tracy by… swinging her murderer around from a crane for a bit. Not my favorite Bond film!
All that aside though, I do like this suit, classic Connery/Sinclair style. Well dressed but nondescript, if a bit overdressed for his surroundings.
With regards to the tie I think that this is the type of ensemble that would look good with just about any color tie!
Kyle, in relation to him being “overdressed for his surroundings” you do raise an interesting point which relates to the relativity of 1971/2012. While I haven’t visited Las Vegas and I’m sure it’s 2012 feel is ultra casual I mentioned the fact that a lounge suit was still the clothing of default for a lot of men in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It wasn’t so much a matter of dressing up or dressing down as would be the consideration now, rather a kind of accepted aspect of male lifestyle/behaviour, almost a uniform.
Sadly, nowadays, a man can appear overdressed in a simple 2 piece suit in many everyday situations which would never have been the case up until, roughly, 25 years ago. Casual clothing, which rose to prominence with youth culture in the 1950’s and 1960’s came to dominate increasingly in the male wardrobe to the detriment of conservative clothing. While this is retrograde in my opinion, for many it’s viewed in the opposite way. My aesthetics tell me that a suit, whether Connery, Moore, Brosnan or Craig style intrinsically enhances a man’s appearance whereas low rise jeans, back to front baseball caps and T shirts announcing how the wearer allegedly got laid in Florida don’t have the same effect!
A burgundy tie, david? Nooo, then he’d look like Roger Moore! Connery looks out of place/character enough as it is in this movie.
I think a burgundy tie would have been great. It’s very traditional and still subdued. Roger Moore wore some brighter red ties, not burgundy.
So true…
I agree with you David, it is a sad state of affairs. I am one of the few people in my office that consistently wears a tie to work.
By “overdressed” I not only meant in terms of formality (which, believe me, it isn’t very hard to be overdressed in this sense in Las Vegas!) but also in terms of temperature. After all, he is in the desert so I think something lighter, such as a linen suit, would look more at home in these surroundings. Think Roger Moore’s tan suit in India, for example– he’s still James Bond and is expected to be dressed as a gentleman, but in something a bit more climate-appropriate than we see here. Granted, this is so much closer to reality than the aforementioned tweed sports jacket towards the end of the film– why anyone would need to wear a turtleneck and country tweeds in the desert makes absolutely no sense to me!
I do like most of the wardrobe in Diamonds (it’s one of the only things I do like about it– maybe Lana Wood…) but as you and Matt point out he doesn’t always dress for where he is!
Ah, Lana Wood. I knew the movie had one or two good points….
Re: the sports coat and turtle neck, I think this is just another result of this film’s hastily produced status. This dressed down formal look would have been popular at the time (and it’s one I like, in the proper context) and the brief indoor scene where Connery wears this outfit would have been produced in much more climatically appropriate Pinewood Studios without the logical consideration that, as intended to stand in for Las Vegas, this would, as already concluded above be highly illogical. But then there is much illogical aspects to this movie, the worst, IMO, of the 1970’s. Good tailoring though.
re the roll neck and sports jacket – I have no idea why (and DAF isn’t a favourite, so I may have missed something) but I always thought he ‘borrowed’ this outfit from someone ala the rollneck and blouson in RM’s size Topol luckily had on his yacht in FYEO… or it could be, as everyone rightly says, just another DAF inanity.
Walking through Chelsea today I was struck that in 40 years time (eg 80 years on from L&LD) it is likely nobody will wear blazers or sports jackets… for every well turned out young man there were 50 in vests and low slung jeans with facial tattoos and God knows what else. And that was Chelsea! Even if we don’t love the Tom Ford look (and I certainly don’t), I hope it seriously inspires today’s young men the way that Hayward, Castle and Brioni did us.
It’s interesting that although the Rat pack had been wearing dinner jackets just five or so years earlier. By 1971 they were so out of date in Vegas that they shot a cameo (later cut) of Sammy Davis Jr looking at James Bond in his white one and saying, “they an’t never gonna find a cake big enough to put him on top of.” Still plenty of two piece suits in the casino though.
“James Saint John Smythe” I couldn’t agree more regarding your Chelsea experience. It’s everywhere and has gotten totally out of hand in the last decade. What puzzles me about all of this is the question: has nobody got any sense of individual aesthetic any more? Do all of these people really actually like this rubbish? What is it human nature that promotes blind, sheep-like conformity? It’s extraordinary that it’s come to the stage that, to wear a blazer or sports coat in some contexts, an item of clothing regarded even as recently as 25, 30 years ago as a more casual step down from the suit, invites crass questions like “What are you dressed up for?” or “What’s the occasion?” One could tersely respond to the questioner asking “Why are you dressed down?” except that, despite their cheek, sadly, they’re more “in step” now than you are. I just tend to diplomatically remark that I like to dress this way with a demeanour that indicates to the other person that I don’t care to discuss the topic. Anyway, it’s depressing and, as you say, you wonder for the future. Sartorially, it’s not sunny.
Matt, might you be able to expand on the worsted wool used on this jacket? It seems to be a semi-solid, but I cannot make out the exact pattern. I’d like to know for sure, for – as an owner of a 1971 Mustang similar to that of which is used in the DAF chase scenes – I’ve contemplated having a duplicate made.
-KK
The cloth is a plain weave and made up of lighter and darker greys, or perhaps even black and white. That’s how most good mid to light grey cloths are done. Have a look at cloth 0500 here: http://www.hfwltd.com/bobb.php?b=jjm&c=5&p=1#thumb.
The cloth of the DAF suit seems to me to be slightly heavier than that of the Dr No suit but is this prehaps only an illusion due to the latter being a mohair blend?
The Dr. No suit does appear to be lighter in weight than the Diamonds Are Forever suit. You can see them both compared in this article:
https://www.bondsuits.com/comparison-grey-suits-in-dr-no-and-diamonds-are-forever/
Something also notable is the lining, that could easily come across unnoticed. When he picks up the jacket from the pool chair by Tiffany’s pool, you can briefly see a black and silver floral? pattern lining! A very dashing choice for Connery’s Bond.
Is this the same suit that he wore at Tiffany’s pool?
Yes, this is the suit.
Could the cloth be a plain-weave worsted ?
Yes, I believe this is a plain-weave worsted.
Is it fresco ? Or just a lightweight plain weave ? How would you define tropical wool ?
It could be fresco, but I suspect it’s a more typical lightweight tropical wool, particularly since Anthony Sinclair liked to work with lightweight cloths. Tropical wool is an open plain-weave wool. Fresco counts as part of that, but it’s usually heavier than other tropical wools.