James Bond’s wardrobe in Octopussy is full of disguises, from the Colonel Toro uniform to the “Octopussy’s Circus” jacket to the gorilla suit to the clown suit. The disguise he spends the most time wearing in Octopussy is the outfit he takes from knife-throwing assassin Mischka (played by David Meyer) after he kills him. Like the clown suit, the outfit Bond takes from Mischka is also a circus costume. It would be quite a silly-looking outfit if it weren’t for the circus, but it’s tame compared to the clown suit.
The main piece of the outfit is a crimson red polyester or nylon tunic that is long enough to almost cover the bum. It has a high collar that closes at the left side, and there is a roughly 9-inch placket that extends down the front of the shirt from the collar fastening to allow a head to fit through the collar. The sleeves are full cut, and the square single-button cuff is attached to the sleeve with gathers. A wide black belt with two rows of flat brass studs and a large two-prong brass buckle worn over the tunic around it gives shape to the outfit. Mischka’s shirt was made by Kortach in London, but Roger Moore’s version was made by his usual shirtmaker Frank Foster.
Over the tunic, Bond wears an open black leather waistcoat that Mischka used to keep his knives. The open design provides easy access to the knives. Below the tunic, Bond wears his own navy straight-leg suit trousers from earlier rather than Mischka’s tighter black trousers worn inside tall black boots. Bond wears his own black slip-on shoes, though the stuntman who plays Bond on top of the train wears black side-zip boots.
And of course, because he mislaid his Walther PPK earlier, Bond ‘wears’ a Walther P5 for the latter half of this film, linking him with the other 1983 Bond film, Never Say Never Again, in which Connery also used the same model.
Even though Bond says he “mislaid my PPK”, it was actually a P5 he had in the taxi chase. The line was incorrect. The only time Bond holds a PPK in the film is in the opening titles.
Matt, I guess Walther were on a big P5 marketing push that year. Not enough to have the dialogue changed, though!
The tunic seems a sort of Russian “gymnastroika”.
Before the movie was released, I remember seeing this outfit in a television commercial and thinking Roger must have “borrowed” one of Topol’s costumes from Fiddler on the Roof. Seeing 007 in this costume with no context really left me bewildered.
“But I don’t wanna be a pirate!”
No match with “Never said never again”.