Skyfall‘s costume designer Jany Temime introduced a British icon to the Bond series: the Barbour jacket. Barbour is famous for its waxed cotton jackets, which are both waterproof and stylish. Bernhard Roetzel praises the Barbour in his book Gentleman: A Timeless Guide to Fashion:
This jacket protects you from bad weather, but it also protects you from the risk of being improperly dressed. And it’s true: if you are not sure what to put on you can always fall back on the Barbour – as long as it’s not too warm, that is.
And Roetzel means that literally, even going as far to say it is better to wear a Barbour and a sweater than a poorly-fitting dinner suit. Perhaps costume designers in the past may have thought the Barbour is too recognisable or too snobbish for Bond, but it’s an appropriate jacket for Bond to wear in a casual country setting.
Bond finds this Barbour jacket and the rest of the outfit at the Skyfall lodge, since he the only thing he has with him is the rope stripe suit that he put on in London. It is possible he kept some of these clothes in his Aston Martin DB5, but it’s more likely he picked them up at the lodge. Though it’s not a traditional zip-fronted Barbour, a Barbour jacket is just the thing you would expect to find at a Scottish estate.
Bond’s Barbour jacket in Skyfall is a limited edition by To Ki To, designed by Tokihito Yoshida, in olive waxed cotton, cut similarly to a lounge coat. It has three large buttons on the front, with the top button placed further apart. Further up the lapels there is a tab and smaller button (which has been removed), but the tab is held back with a button under the lapel. If the tab were extended, the button that Bond uses to hold it back would be used to secure a throat latch to the chest. The throat latch would also attach to buttons on either side of the collar, which have also been removed. There is also another small button that closes the top of the lapels. The shoulders have patches of a different, greener material. The front of the jacket has two flapped bellows pockets on the hips, with the bellows made from the same material as the shoulder patches. There is also a flapped, inset breast pocket, and the back of the jacket has vertical zip pockets on the sides of the skirt. The jacket comes with a hood, but since the hood is not worn the zip and buttons that the hood attaches to has been removed. The sleeve openings are finished with a stripe of brown leather binding. A lot has been removed from the original jacket to streamline it to just Bond’s needs.
Underneath the Barbour Bond wears a cashmere round neck jumper by N.Peal in “Blue Wave,” with a chocolate brown cashmere scarf from Tom Ford tucked in to the jumper. And under the jumper Bond wears an off-white, long-sleeve henley shirt. His trousers are dark brown cords—the Corduane Iggy Jeans from All Saints. The wing-tip boots are the Crockett & Jones Islay model in Dark Brown Scotch Grain with Dainite rubber soles.
Barbour, N.Peal and Crockett & Jones are all taking advantage of the Bond connection to advertise their products. For the rest of the items, I thank the collectors at ajb007 for their research. More images will come following the Blu-ray release.
Finally just saw Skyfall. Interested in hearing your take on some of the other characters’ wardrobes and how they contrast with Bond’s style — and how that helps build their personalities (specifically, Mallory).
Probably the nicest outfit Bond wears in the whole film. On-trend for 2012 but also timeless. I imagine that the audience is expected to infer that it belonged to his father – quite unlike anything we’ve seen Bond wear before but absolutely perfect for the character (and the film). The shoes are maybe a bit too fussy to believe they’d just be lying around.
I agree. Where Jany Temime got Daniel Craig’s suits wrong, she nailed it with this country outfit. (As well as Ralph Fiennes’ clothing.) Makes sense that these clothes would be hanging in his father’s closet for decades.
Yeah…except it doesn’t really as this jacket was part of the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection. But I get where you’re coming from :-)
Eh, even so one could easily see that style of Barbour existing in the 1970s through today.
Absolutely!
Dear Matt,
I love your quoting Mr Roetzel’s book, a reference for my personnal style since its release in France in my formative student years.
I have owned a Bedale Barbour jacket since then. I had purchased it for my student exchange in Ireland fearing the climate. I wore everyday on that semester (though I had some great weather and time there) and still wear that Barbour to this day, used and rugged 12 years later. By coincidence I had it at a racecourse today, where it felt perfectly at home.
Any item of this brand is never as good as with a bit of wear (actually the more the better!). And I love the tribute that James Bond gives to such a monument of British style. Perhaps the best outfit in the film.
Timeless, versatile British and indestructible, perhaps the perfect match for 007!
Regards from France
Eric
PS: forgive the lengthy comment but I think you will understand what fond memories such garments can give.
My vintage Gamefair is, without doubt, one of my favorite pieces of clothing. I look forward to the season’s changing so I can wear it again. The pleasure I had in using it when first bought, used, increased significantly after it was sent to Barbour for a new zipper, a small repair, and sleeve lengthening. Their interest in servicing their goods, and the fact that their clothes are meant to last and be serviced through the years, gives great, great pleasure, as does the excellence of the actual service work.
Agree with the comments above. Having not seen the movie but plenty of images of the clothing, this seems to be by far the best item in it and most in keeping with Bond’s heritage. I am going on your description though Matt, as the images of the jacket are not too clear. I have a Barbour myself, though obviously standard and not made to order like this one. It’s getting plenty of wear now these cold damp early Winter days.
A welcome departure form those flashy Tom Ford suits (yes, they are excellent for movie stars).
No offence, but where are you getting “flashy” from? There’s nothing particularly attention-catching about the style and fabric of these suits. The t00-tight fit is another thing. Some other Tom Ford suits I’ve seen are indeed flamboyant in their details and fabric, though.
Great jacket. It’s not made to measure Mr. Marlborough, I bought one not so long ago. Barbour will make alterations for you however. I’ve left all of the buttons and hood zip attached as I like to be able to use them, but otherwise it’s identical.
You can tell that, in an effort to make it look more aged, they’ve rewaxed the jackets used in filming. The finish on mine is more matte and even.
Matt, do yo think that you should note that the Barbour sports jacket doesn’t have much in the way of structure?, the shoulders have none really. Especially when compared to Connery’s hacking jacket in Goldfinger.
Connery’s jacket is lightly structured, but it’s made from a much heavier cloth.
The tweed is much heavier than waxed cotton of course. Even though there are heavier tweed jackets out there than Connery’s great example. Connery’s jacket has a bit of wadding in the shoulders to give it structure.
Barbour sports jacket is very unstructured and not what I would call tailored really. It’s a cross between a regular casual Barbour waxed jacket and a sport coat.
Matt, would these green Donegal tweed trousers be too close in color to the Barbour jacket to look well together?
https://www.spierandmackay.com/product/bottoli—green-donegal-600327-f1h1-fw20
It’s difficult to tell. The textural contrast between the two will help a lot, but the hues of the greens need to be close enough so they don’t clash. Pairing two of the same colour is very difficult.