James Bond’s Morning Suit at Royal Ascot in A View to a Kill

Original article published 17 June 2011.

I am in the process of rewriting and republishing old articles about James Bond’s outfits that are in need of a refresh and expansion. All former comments are preserved below.

After Bond’s mission briefing in A View to a Kill, M gives Bond exactly 35 minutes to get properly dressed for a visit to the Ascot Racecourse for Royal Ascot.

Morning dress is required for attending Royal Ascot in the Royal Enclosure, the most exclusive of the enclosures. The current dress code for gentlemen within the Royal Enclosure, as of 2026, is morning dress of black, grey or navy with a waistcoat and necktie. Cravats, bow ties and neckerchiefs are not permitted. A black or grey top hat is required, with specific instructions as to where it may be removed. Customised top hats with coloured ribbons, feathers or embellishments are forbidden. Fancy dress, novelty and branded clothing are also not permitted except for patriotic ties. Shoes must be black, with socks covering the ankles. The sock requirement was added in 2018, when fashion trends saw men dressing formally with bare ankles.

The Royal Enclosure’s dress code enforces formality and tradition, and it prevents the enclosure from becoming a fashion show. There is still room for interpretation, namely in the shirt, waistcoat and tie. Colour is not discouraged in these areas today. James Bond and his colleagues are dressed to the standards of the Royal Enclosure, allowing them to blend in while pointing their binoculars in a questionable direction. The three other enclosures have increasingly less formal dress codes.

There are two distinct variations of morning dress. The first consists of a black or dark grey wool—usually barathea or featherweave (mini-herringbone)—morning coat, a type of tailcoat with a cutaway front that’s known in America as a ‘cutaway’. It’s paired with a waistcoat, either matching the morning coat or in a contrasting—usually pale or pastel—colour in wool gabardine or linen. The contrasting waistcoat is worn for more festive occasions, while the matching waistcoat is typically worn for more serious occasions. The trousers should be a fancy black-and-grey stripe known as a ‘cashmere stripe’, which is a family of various stripe patterns, or a black-and-white houndstooth check or Prince of Wales check. Striped trousers are more popular and more formal than the checked trousers. When worn with striped or checked trousers, the morning coat must be black or dark grey, not navy, and not light grey like Bond’s morning dress in Licence to Kill.

The second variation, the one Bond opts for, is a slightly less formal variant called the morning suit, where the coat, trousers and waistcoat are made of the same cloth. A morning suit may also consist of a matching coat and trousers but with a contrasting waistcoat like in the more formal mode of morning dress. The morning suit is usually made in charcoal grey to light grey wool, either in a sharkskin semi-solid pattern or a herringbone weave. Plain navy morning suits are a less traditional option, but they have been accepted in the Royal Enclosure since 2020. James Bond’s morning suit is a three-piece mini-herringbone worsted in contrasting dark grey and light grey. It’s perhaps the least conspicuous form of morning dress, which follows James Bond’s typical manner of dressing. Being less conspicuous does not mean it’s any less stylish.

Bond’s morning suit is made by Roger Moore’s usual tailor, Douglas Hayward. The morning coat is cut with soft shoulders and slightly roped sleeve heads. It has one button on the front in a low stance, medium-width peak lapels, a welt breast pocket and three-button cuffs. The coat’s buttons are dark brown horn. The morning coat has a traditional cut with a waist seam and tails at the back. Following tradition, it does not have hip pockets, which historically went away as the morning coat took on a more formal place in society. The lining matches the coat in dark grey. Bond wears the coat open.

Double-breasted waistcoats are popular for morning dress, but Bond is wearing an equally appropriate single-breasted waistcoat. It has six buttons, with the bottom button positioned right where the cutaway starts. The bottom button is worn unfastened. The waistcoat’s opening is fairly low, and the overall length is slightly long. It has four pockets on the front, most likely all welt pockets. The trousers have a flat front and a medium-width straight leg.

Roger Moore wore the same morning suit to the Epsom Derby on many occasions through the second half of the 1980s and in the early 1990s. The morning suit was sold at Bonhams in New Bond Street at ‘Sir Roger Moore: The Personal Collection’ on 4 October 2023 for £10,240.

The shirt from Frank Foster is made of white cotton poplin. Though shirts with a white collar and light-coloured body are also traditional for morning dress, everyone in this scene who is wearing morning dress is also wearing a plain white shirt. Bond’s shirt has a cutaway collar, an unusual collar for Moore’s Bond. It’s not as wide as modern extreme cutaway collars, but it still has a dramatic spread to give this outfit a smarter appearance for morning dress. Like most of Moore’s collars, it has a high stand at the rear but is fairly low on the neck in front. There is no correct collar style for morning dress, though starched detachable collars are most correct, and wing collars have long been considered too old-fashioned for morning dress. The shirt is detailed with a front placket and double cuffs with round cufflinks of white metal.

Bond wears a Macclesfield-type tie, woven in a discrete pattern of grey and silver. It’s a very formal tie that is perfect for morning dress, and it’s particularly ideal for weddings. Requirements for simple, patterned ties in the Royal Enclosure have relaxed in recent years. Despite the wide collar, the tie is tied in a four-in-hand knot. Not much of the tie shows at the sides of the knot because the collar is fairly low at the front.

The light grey top hat is an essential accessory with morning dress at Royal Ascot. The hat is made from fur felt and has a curled brim bound with grey grosgrain ribbon. The grey top hat that Bond’s usual hat maker Lock & Co currently sells has the traditional black wool felt band at the base of the crown, but Bond’s hat appears to have a shinier black silk ribbon with a bow at the left side. Christys currently offers a similar hat.

A pair of unlined grey chamois leather dress gloves and a white carnation in the lapel buttonhole complete the outfit. Bond’s shoes are not visible in this scene, but they should be black. Knowing Roger Moore’s Bond, they’re most likely black loafers, though oxfords are ideal. Everyone in the scene is wearing a white rectangular badge—on the left lapel for men—that reads in red lettering ‘Royal Ascot Enclosure 1984’ at the top and ‘Thursday’ at the bottom, with room for the name to be handwritten in between. None of the characters appear to have their names written on their badges.

Now Pay Attention