For visits to M’s office and to Q’s lab in Spectre, James Bond wears a grey herringbone track strip suit from Tom Ford. Spectre continues in the long history of Bond films where Bond dresses in stripes in London. This suit’s cloth exchanges the standard pinstripe and chalk stripe for a cloth with more interest in the stripe and in the weave. The cloth is woven in a narrow herringbone weave, which changes direction every 16 yarns. The cloth is woven with medium grey in the warp and charcoal grey in the weft for an overall vibrant dark grey. There is a white track stripe where the herringbone changes direction. The track stripe is two single-yarn pinstripes spaced a yarn apart. Because the stripe is part of the herringbone weave, it has a soft chalk-stripe-like appearance. The suiting is made of a blend of worsted wool, silk and mohair.
The suit is the O’Connor model designed by costume designer Jany Temime in collaboration with Tom Ford for Spectre, and it has the same cut and the same details that the other three O’Connor suits in the film have. The jacket has straight, padded shoulders with roped sleeve heads, a close-fitting chest, a too-tight waist and a fashionably short length. The front has three buttons with narrow lapels rolled to the middle button for a button two look. This is known as “button two, show one” or “three-roll-two”. The lower foreparts are cutaway and reveal a triangle of shirt below the jacket’s fastened button. The jacket is detailed with a single vent, slanted hip pockets, a curved “barchetta” breast pocket and four buttons on the cuffs. The last buttonhole on the cuffs is longer than the rest, and Bond ungentlemanly wears the last button open.
The suit trousers have a wide extended waistband, slide-buckle side-adjusters, side seams curved forward at the top with on-seam pockets, narrow straight legs and turn-ups. They have a low rise and are hemmed with no break, which means they are very short and cover little of the shoes.
With the suit, Bond wears two different shirts and ties from Tom Ford. When he first visits M’s office he wears a white cotton poplin shirt with a medium-dark grey repp tie and no pocket handkerchief. Later when he goes to Q’s office he wears a sky blue shirt with a matching sky blue folded pocket handkerchief and a navy repp tie. The navy tie is a deep, rich blue and towards indigo on the spectrum. Tom Ford calls this tie “navy”, as opposed to the similar “ink” tie that Bond wears later in the film.
The shirts are both in the same style and have a point collar, double cuffs, a front placket and back darts, which give the shirt a close fit. The ties both are silk repp and 7.5 cm/3 inches wide. The sky blue shirt and navy tie are much more flattering to Craig’s complexion than the white shirt and grey tie since he looks better with less contrast.
Bond’s shoes are the Crockett & Jones Norwich model. They are black calf five-eyelet, cap-toe derby shoes with Dainite studded rubber soles.
Over the suit Bond wears a navy herringbone “Crombie” coat, which is the name commonly used for a three-quarter-length chesterfield coat. Tom Ford does not use the name “Crombie” for this coat, which is trademarked by the British brand Crombie. However, this style of coat is most popularly associated with the Crombie brand. The coat is made of a luxurious 51% cashmere and 49% silk blend. It has structured padded shoulders and a darted front for a closely fitted silhouette. There are three buttons down the front, which are covered with a fly. Bond only fastens the coat’s middle button. The coat is detailed with straight flap hip pockets, a curved “barchetta” breast pocket, a single vent and three buttons on the cuffs. The collar is cotton moleskin in a slightly lighter and more vivid blue than the rest of the coat. When Bond is on his way to Q’s lab he wears a long navy scarf warpped twice around the neck and looped over in front.
Bond rudely keeps his coat on in M’s office but takes it off in Q’s office. Neither Bond nor M appear to be in a rush in M’s office, so he has no excuse for wearing it. It makes the same suit look more different in the two separate scenes, when Bond really should have put on a different suit the next day. In Goldfinger, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights and GoldenEye, Bond wears different suits on different days for his office visits and should have continued that tradition here.
Lovely suiting. I have no idea where I can find similar cloth RTW. I love herringbone and the stripe is nicely done.
The dit could be a bit better; I find the coat the most jarring. In M’s office I was wondering what suit Bond was wearing but it was simply that skin tight coat, which looks far too feminine in the final image of this post. The coat fabric looks lovely, but that fit (for me) is very unflattering for a male.
fit not dit, obviously!
It’s unflattering for anyone regardless of sex/gender. I’ve seen coats with a very close fitting waist that appeared quite masculine and didn’t look ill-fitting. The problem, as Matt has said before, is that the waist is simply too tight to the point of pulling in an unsightly way. Sadly a lot of men think this is good fit now.
It’s unflattering for a man, for a male James Bond. A man.
Actually, accentuating the hip/waist ratio is quite popular, and flattering, with females.
My wife would love hat coat.
oops… “that coat”.
Love the suiting and colour, a perfect business look for the city. Would of been better though with more classic proportions.
I agree – this is one of the best suit and tie combinations Craig has worn in his tenure as Bond. It may be an attempt at an updated classic Connery look. Still a little too tight, though, especially in the trousers.
Another great write up Matt.
The outfit Bond wears in Q’s lab is my favourite in the film. The colours all go well together and with Craig’s hair and skin. The contrast of the sky blue shirt against the grey is not nearly as stark as say the blue POW check in the opening scene. This outfit is similar to the outfit he wears in M’s office in Skyfall, and improved in my view. But the fit is still too Pee Wee Herman.
The Crombie coat is a bit of a disaster in my view. The shoulders look masculine, but everything below the shoulders look feminine. It gives him an hour glass figure with big curvy hips. Very odd! And in the last picture, we are back to white shirts and navy again which is a wash out.
I am not sure about navy overcoats with grey suits. They did this in Skyfall in London too. Anyone have any thoughts – do navy and grey actually work?
Navy overcoats are a perfect complement to grey suits.
I like the look of a navy overcoat with a gray suit or gray overcoat with a blue suit. The contrast is appealing.
Fit problems aside, this is my favorite suit in SPECTRE. I’m still not sure why Bond kept his coat on inside M’s office– Craig’s predecessors always hung theirs up on Miss Moneypenny’s hat rack. Perhaps this was done in order to make using the same suit for two different scenes seem less obvious? Leaving his coat on just seems like an odd thing to do.
I wonder if they simply forgot, but it was a good take? Not sure. I can’t fathom it. Rather strange behaviour.
My assumption was that it showed how much trouble he was in with M – nice visual shorthand that he was dragged in (metaphorically) without even being given the time to take his coat off, much less flirt with Moneypenny. I thought it was a nice touch, and a great example of “show, don’t tell”.
If the cut scene is ever revealed, we may know better as to why Bond left his coat on. I read an early leaked script, but I don’t believe it gave any clue to this.
Could I just make a side note; as much as I didn’t care for “Spectre”…the one thing I found annoying were the self-important “hero” shots of Craig-as-Bond. Almost every scene he is filmed dead center screen…just my opinion.
As a James Bond film about James Bond with the lead playing the hero, James Bond, I think hero shots of James Bond are acceptable.
Hero shots of Indiana Jones in a James Bond, now that would be annoying.
“…the one thing I found annoying were the self-important “hero” shots of Craig-as-Bond. Almost every scene he is filmed dead center screen…”
Yes, I do hope they go back to what they did in the Moore and Brosnan years when Bond was always standing at the far side of the screen, behind a potted plant, or speaking his lines from offscreen because he’s standing in another room. I can’t think of any other major studio films that have the lead character actually featured in the centre of the screen…could you imagine?
;-)
I’d like to see Bond back in a navy blazer, I know navy blazer’s with metal buttons are out of fashion at the moment, but there still classic. So were turtlenecks really also til Craig wore them in Spectre. So there’s no reason not to bring it back to the series in the right setting. Even a decent sports coat wouldn’t go astray.
I agree about the blazer. Your point regarding turtlenecks also applies to cardigans, which Craig “brought back” in CR and QoS.
Ryan, I couldn’t agree more. Maybe if Bond started wearing blazers and sport coats again, he would help dispel the absurd notion that they are somehow “old-mannish”.
Yes, cardigans were seen as something Grandads or woodwork/science teachers wore till Craig brought them back to Steve McQueen coolness. I brought a shawl collar cardigan after Craig wore one in Quantum Of Solace and still wear it with a white dress shirt on casual winter days. Sports coats and Blazers are an important casual/well-dressed but not over dressed part of every man’s wardrobe there both classic when used properly and paired with appropriate trousers.
Craig has already brought the ‘odd jacket’ back with Spectre’s linen blend light brown jacket, of which I own a copy (but with patch pockets). Getting a lot of use out of it in our Aussie summer.
I like the suits of Spectre, actually. Not a fan of the tight fit, though. On a sidenote, I keep reading “herringbone track suit” when entering this site. Very confusing, I must say.
I really like light blue shirt on Craig; Matt was able to demonstrate this on the QoS cut scene article.
These Tom Ford shirts are great and the collars are complimentary to Craig’s face I think. I concur with my comrades above that the colour combo here is perfect on Craig.
It’s a shame about the waist fit. If they could have gone with QoS cut (with correct sleeve length) with Skyfall and Spectre suiting then they’d be bang on the money in my opinion.
Nice illustration on the weave Matt.
cheers
Ryan Rowntree
Matt, in M’s office the dimple in Bond’s tie appears very long. Do you think it is too long?
No, it’s not too long. Dimples aren’t something that should be thought about too much.
You made me smile with that comment.
I was wondering, you mentioned in the Moonraker single button cream suit article that one should never have perfectly matching shirts and pocket squares.
Does the same rule apply here?
I think that a shirt and pocket square should never be an exact match, just the same as a tie and pocket square should not.
I could not but help notice admire the rich blue color of Mr. Craig’s tie, and that it matched well with the pale blue shirt.
Above all, i could not help observing how the rich blue tie matched with Mr. Craig’s blue eyes.
Honestly, it almost made me contemplate going to the optician and getting a pair of blue eye contact lenses made!
To those who observe such things, really they do make a powerful impression.
Matt, do you have any more information regarding the medium gray tie Bond wears in M’s office? I like the way this looks with the gray suit and white poplin shirt.
The tie is 7.5 cm wide in a repp weave. That’s about it.
A nice article as usual Mr. Spaiser. I have to say that the suiting that is used here is quite nice. I agree with you about how the second shirt and tie looks much nicer on Mr. Craig’s complexion.
Speaking of which, I noticed in the article that you said that with the first shirt and tie Bond is not wearing a handkerchief. Could this be because he is wearing the crombie over the suit and we do not see the suit or is there a picture of him not wearing a handkerchief with this first outfit that you have seen without the crombie?
Thanks and again great article!