The spring tailored wardrobe is full of fun and fascinating possibilities. Spring offers many useful items for three-season wear as well as a number of more unusual options. While this season has plenty of overlap with the autumn wardrobe because the temperatures are similar, spring clothes tend to be lighter and brighter by comparison. Some spring outfits even look summery, but the cloths may be less breathable than those used for summer suits.
1. Black or Midnight Blue Mohair Dinner Suit
The mohair dinner suit is one of Bond’s favourites throughout the series, as it has a formal-looking sheen and a sharp drape. Whether its in black or midnight blue, it always has a rich, deep appearance. Bond’s mohair dinner suits either have a single-breasted jacket with peaked lapels, notched lapels and shawl collars, or a double-breasted peak-lapel jacket. Mohair wears cool in spring and summer weather, making it the ideal choice for the popular springtime black tie affairs. However, it’s also suitable for black tie affairs year-round, particularly when in a medium weight.
2. Navy Mohair Suit
Mohair isn’t just for dinner suits. The mohair suit is one of the best spring and summer suits for its cool-wearing properties. Its sheen makes it one of the dressiest suits, and in darker colours like navy it can be stylish for a daytime or evening formal occasion. James Bond wears navy mohair suits in You Only Live Twice and Quantum of Solace, the former for business and the latter for a social affair. Brown mohair, as worn in Thunderball and Quantum of Solace, makes for a less versatile but very stylish alternative. Mohair is usually combined with wool, but in Quantum of Solace Bond’s mohair is combined with cashmere, for a most luxurious cloth.
3. Grey Glen Check Suit
Few suits say spring like a glen check suit in worsted wool. The glen check suit is a staple of the Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Daniel Craig eras, in both black-and-white and black-and-grey colourways. While it’s less formal than a solid or striped blue or grey suit, Bond frequently wears his glen check suits for business and other daytime affairs. Finer checks are dressier while larger checks are sportier, but they are all somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between the most formal and the most sporty of suits. Lazenby’s suit is a Prince of Wales variant with a blue overcheck for some additional interest. Daniel Craig also wears blue glen check suits, for a stylish alternative to grey.
4. Tan Wool Gabardine Suit
The wool gabardine suit was a Bond staple in the 1980s, worn in shades of tan and fawn. It has a summer look, but wool gabardine’s tight weave makes it more of a spring suit. It’s an ideal suit for sunny locations but less formal occasions, similar to when a glen check suit would be appropriate. What it lacks in versatility it makes up for in style, and it’s perfect with or without a tie.
5. Grey Silk Suit
The silk suit is a flashy and luxurious look for spring, particularly in classic silk dupioni. Sean Connery wears it in From Russia with Love, and it’s a staple of Roger Moore’s 1970s style. It’s most Bondian in shades of grey, from dark charcoal grey to light silver grey. It’s not an easy suit to wear, and no occasion ever demands a silk suit, but it’s for the stylish man who loves tailoring. This is a suit that purely for social affairs and not for business, but as the suit becomes less common for work, the silk suit becomes more relevant as men are able to have more freedom when choosing their suits.
6. Navy Double-Breasted Blazer
The primary blazer of George Lazenby, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan eras is of the double-breasted sort. James Bond is most associated with single-breasted suits, but the double-breasted blazer appropriately recalls his naval uniform. It’s either in the classic 6×2 style (two buttons fasten on the right) or the more naval-influenced 6×3 style (all three buttons fasten on the right). It has either straight flap pockets or slanted pockets, and it always has double vents (except for the skydiving stuntman’s version in Moonraker). Bond’s blazers are made of wool serge, wool hopsack or wool doeskin, with the former two being best for spring temperatures. Roger Moore made this his signature look in his later years and wore one everywhere he went, demonstrating its versatility in cooler weather with grey flannel trousers or in warmer weather with tan wool gabardine trousers, just as Bond did.
7. Navy Raincoat
The raincoat is the most practical and essential item on this list. It rains infrequently in the Bond films, but Bond owns a cotton raincoat for when it does. Bond has raincoats in both tan and navy, and while both are highly versatile the latter has a more modern look that is more synonymous with the character. Ian Fleming dressed Bond in a dark blue raincoat in the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service novel. Daniel Craig’s navy raincoat in Casino Royale is the most visible of the series and sets the perfect example of a Bondian raincoat.
You forgot to add – something like a creamy, ecru suit.
Then again, I’m the one who missed out the most… I have a length of dark navy mohair that I planned to turn into a summer suit, but never got to (so far), as well as several other summery lengths.
This thing really takes time. And then some.
The cream suit is part of the summer wardrobe: https://www.bondsuits.com/the-top-007-tailored-outfits-of-a-summer-bond-wardrobe/
I suppose, if you’re as adventurous as I am, you could make the ecru suit a two-season piece. I don’t know how Spring is like in NY in general, but when she hits our Northwestern corner, a cream suit really looks befitting, and the right weave and weight makes perfect sense, too.
But again, I’m being very adventurous. I’d say, I could even wear an ecru suit in Winter, albeit heavier weight, of course.
Matt,
If I wanted to be pedantic, I would say that Bond’s plaid suit in OHMSS is actually worn in autumn between the September meeting of Bond and Tracy (as per the novel’s incipit) and that year’s Christmas. Scenes in Bern seem to have been shot in autumn as well as the filming started in October 1968 in Switzerland for the only occurence of rain in Bond film until Casino Royale. Once again it is cinema magic as the earlier late summer early autumn narration of the Portuguese scenes were shot after the Swiss scenes in spring 1969. But the suit is a perfect spring suit and an example of the overlap of spring and autumn wardrobes.
Best regards
I can confirm that the mohair suit is a thing of beauty, I got a brown one similar to the Quantum of Solace suit but with patch pockets just to reflect the more casual colour, and it’s easily my favourite suit. I’m looking to get a navy one once I find one in my price range.
If you’re considering getting a mohair suit stop considering and take the plunge.
My favorites in this list are the tuxedo (though I will never have an occasion where I need to wear one) and the navy mohair suit. I prefer a single breasted raincoat in khaki though which I have and love.
Reid, I just only had a velvet dinner coat last year myself. I feel you there.
Then again, how many occasions do any of us even have to wear any of them? Society has reached the lowest point, and it can’t even go up.
But admittedly, I have three lengths of mohair I need to turn into suits. Outside of that, anything at or over 1000 grams in weight for rainy and wintery suit is a priority.
I certainly agree that our society has lost a lot of altitude insofar as sartorial elegance and then some. However do not weaken and choose beauty even in our progressively ugly world . Fail not.