After my first entry covering The Saint was well received, here’s another from episode 2 of series 5 called “Interlude in Venice.” This episode is notable for featuring two actors from the Bond series: Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) and Paul Stassino (Angelo Palazzi and Major Derval in Thunderball). Moore wears a white dupioni silk dinner jacket made by Conduit Street tailor Cyril Castle. The dinner jacket has a single-button front, shawl collar and three-button gauntlet cuffs. The buttons are white mother of pearl. The jacket is tailored with soft shoulders, a clean chest and a suppressed waist. Like a proper dinner jacket, it has jetted pockets and no vents.
The dinner jacket is worn with black darted front trousers from Cyril Castle with a black satin stripe down each leg. There is no cummerbund or waistcoat.
Moore’s white dress shirt from Frank Foster has a spread collar, pleated front and double cuffs. There are mother-of-pearl buttons down the placket, which has two lines of stitching close together down the middle of the placket. A close-up of the cuffs shows a waffle weave texture, which is not typical of pleated shirts. It might be the case that the shirt in the close-up shots is a different shirt altogether, but this could be a textured pleated shirt. Moore wears a black matte silk—possibly barathea—narrow batwing-shaped bow tie and keeps a black silk handkerchief in his breast pocket.
I have a Turnbull & Asser tuxedo shirt with a pleated front, and it is made from standard poplin, except for the collar and cuffs, which are pique. I'm assuming that's what Roger has on here. I quite like the subtle contrast personally, and pique is more comfortable around your neck.
Huge fan of the blog by the way, especially the focus on formalwear.
Very nice. I remember the outfit.
Personally, I prefer a peaked lapel and double rear vents (a bit like Moore’s Octopussy version) but the shawl collar here is narrow (in keeping with the style of suiting in 1966) and works better than a fuller shawl collar.
Notice the small cuffs at the end of the jacket’s sleeves. Moore had these on all his suits at the time. I have a black dinner suit which I came across for a steal of a price in a charity shop here in Dublin a number of years ago. It was tailored by Louis Copeland, a renowned if a little overrated Dublin tailor, but looks well and it has these kind of cuffs.
Great, except for the slight too narrow shawl collar.
Matt, the 1st of the Frank Foster batch of six shirts I ordered came this week in the post for me to try on. Fits perfectly. I only need to send it back now to have 2 buttons put on the mitred finish single cuff instead of the one that came. Foster is elderly and things take a while. Nevertheless, the end result is excellent. I will send you photos of all six shirts, as promised, when they all arrive. One of them is a white one for evening wear and this alone has the classic 007 "Cocktail" cuff.
While a very nice suit, and Moore looks very dapper, I am not a fan of this suit. Don't get me wrong – it is obviously well-tailored and sophisticated. But I find the super-narrow shawl collar dates this suit as much as Castle's wide lapels date the Moonraker suits. To me, it is a mirror image of the 1979 suits – well tailored, very sophisticated look, and just too much of its time. In contrast, Connery's suits from the mid-60s are more classic, despite some 60's details. This keeps them, and the character, from looking really dated to modern eyes (and actually fitting right into the current styles).
Good points Christian.
It's hard to get a given outfit that doesn't have some, even small, detail which betrays its vintage. Hard but not impossible. Something like the morning suit featured in the blog above for example. Bond's Hayward 1980's suits are fairly timeless and classic aswell as Connery's mid 60's suits you mention and, to be fair, the charcoal one from The Man With the Golden Gun and the navy Live and Let Die one are not instantly, uniquely mid 70's loooking, in light of the contemporary cuts from that time.
Agreed, Christian.
Matt, be honest – what do you really think about the black handkerchief in his breast pocket?
Is this not too “matchy-matchy”?
At the very least does it not turn an otherwise elegant ivory dinner jacket into something almost military in appearance?
I think it’s fine. A perfect match to the bow tie is acceptable in this case because the overall look is aiming for all black and white. It’s the same as matching one’s bow tie exactly to the facings on a black dinner jacket. If this were a suit, you couldn’t match the tie and handkerchief, but for black tie it’s different if you only want to use black and white in the outfit. The standard white pocket handkerchief wouldn’t work with a white jacket, but this follows the same principle. However, a fancier handkerchief in a black and white pattern or red would be a more sophisticated choice.
Thanks for that, Matt! While I’m still a little iffy on the black handkerchief I think you are right in regards to a red one … in much the same way that the burgundy waistcoat or red carnation in the lapel works so well with the ivory dinner jacket I do think that that a red or burgundy handkerchief can generate a similar effect.