Roger Moore’s 1980s clothing is for the most part very classic. Bond often wears a black shirt with black trousers for his nighttime spying, but in A View to a Kill Moore caves to 1980s fashion and wears a midnight blue velour tracksuit from the Italian sportswear comapny FILA. At the time, tracksuits weren’t just athletic wear, they were a fashion item. The jacket has raglan sleeves, a zip fastening and welted pockets with elasticised cuffs and an elasticised hem. There is white piping on the seams, down the shoulders and sleeves, and across the pocket welts.
The jogging pants are made in the same velour as the jacket and have an elasticised waist with a white tie fastening. Underneath the suit Bond wears a medium blue crew-neck shirt. Bond wears black trainers. Can anybody identify them in the picture below?
The tracksuit was sold at Christie’s in South Kensington on 12 December 2001 for £470.
The track suit was sold at auction…and then BURNED!!!!
Actually Borat bought it!!!!
Crikey. You’re ruining these films for me! I hardly noticed Bond’s clothes before. In Bond/Moore’s defence, he’s undercover and if he was caught outside on the chateaux grounds, he could say he was just out jogging, he couldn’t do that if he wore his black shiny shoes, black shirt and trousers like the clothes he wore in Moonraker for sneaking around the Venice lab. So the bad Fila track suit is in character. Clearly James St. John-Smythe is a bit of a chav. :)
Fila was the height of sports chic in the 80s and expensive
This tracksuit is actually for sale (and has been so for numerous years) through Bondcollectibles for the princely sum of EUR 5877.
If it enables one to perform half the moves and jumping about a 57 year old Bond could, it might actually be a steal…
what is Bondcollectibles?
Here’s a link: http://www.bondcollectibles.de/catalogue/products.php?product=2891
Gentlemen, luckily it was France and not a more exotic location or it could have been a safari suit =)
Seriously though, having enjoyed this blog for three years now, it seems to me that some Bond’s (Connery, Craig), no matter what the sartorial crime, can get away with murder whereas others (Moore, Dalton) for differing reasons are condemned instantly and that the sub-conscious influence for this is related to their overall performance/perception in the role.
This particular ensemble is objectively so-so and nothing to get excited about one way or another. Matt, I clearly recall the mid 1980’s and a good deal of men still dressed correctly and track suits were, overall, still use for their original purpose. If Moore had really “caved in” to the sartorial zeitgeist he’d have worn a shell suit; a truly hideous prospect! Nowadays however, tracks suits, sorry “leisure wear” proliferate in the British Isles and well outside the confines of sporting pursuits. When you look at some specimens walking the streets in this dross Moore’s version looks extremely neat in comparison.
I also wonder would Connery’s equally so-so, light grey track suit with matching polo neck from “Never Say Never Again” (which you haven’t yet posted) have gotten the stick this has and I’m guessing no as this is worn by Moore, an therefore, fair game.
Don’t forget that sportswear could be deemed an appropriate choice as he’s about to go a few rounds beneath the sheets with the appalling Grace Jones, a challenging sexual situation for any man never mind a spy in his mid 50’s ;)
At the time, tracksuits (especially in velour) were becoming a part of hip hop culture. Though Roger Moore is quite far removed from hip hop, I can’t help but think it has something to do with him wearing a velour tracksuit.
With Connery there is no doubt he wore his tracksuit for fitness purposes. And it wasn’t velour, from what I remember.
No 57 year old man should ever wear a tracksuit, no matter what his name is!
I have to agree with David that this particular ensemble is just so-so. The biggest issue I have with this is that, more than any other outfit in the film, this one seems to emphasize Roger’s age and frail physique. Connery gets well-deserved criticism for his declining physical condition from 1967 to 1971, but at least he looks physically believable, strong and able to do the things required of him if 20 pounds overweight. And he certainly looked more robust in his grey track suit in 1983 then Moore did. Here, to be consistent, Roger should be criticized for continuing on in the role by at least one and possibly 2 films (though I think he just still pulls it off in Octopussy) and this clothing (along with, in my opinion, the white dinner jacket) emphasizes this.
David- I hear your comments as to the reaction each actor engenders. I am just not sure if I agree with them. Very generally speaking, Roger has his absolutist defenders and the regulars on this blog seem generally sympathetic to his wardrobe. Some do seem to think he can do no right, but overall, I think Roger gets a lot of slack here. Dalton seems just the opposite, with little concession for the era in which he played Bond. Pierce, of course, is well-liked on this blog, too much so from my point of view, and it seems Lazenby has earned a lot of respect.
Craig splits people primarily over current fashion trends and some also seem unable to separate their reaction to him in the role with the clothes in which he is dressed.
I don’t think Connery, or at least his clothing, has really any regular detractors. It seems his early to mid 1960s monochrome is either liked or not (“boring” is the criticism I recall, and “his shoulders are too large”, whatever that means), but I don’t recall the actual clothing generating a lot of the polemics that Roger, Dalton, and Craig engender.
Also to all the regulars, from California (where it is 78 degrees), Merry Christmas Eve to all!
Good points and, as always, well made, Christian. In relation to your point re: Craig the thing is, for me, is that I couldn’t bear him from the word go in “Casino Royale” (at the same time as everyone else was proclaiming him to be the best Bond since Connery, or even, ever!) and I have never been able to get past this or have a change of heart. He turned me off in the same way as Dalton did 25 years ago and primarily for the same reasons; firstly for the gloomy, saturnine manner of his portrayal and then for aspects of his dress (although the tailoring in his first two movies seemed fine). While the two aspects are indeed linked, even if he dressed say, as Pierce had, which I found (for the most part at least) ok, I still just wouldn’t care for Daniel Craig as Bond.
I agree that “Octopussy” (a good Bond movie overall) would have been a better swan song for Roger as, apart from it having, generally, a nice and varied wardrobe, “AVTAK” was a crap movie with some very irritating characters. Ironically, as I have noted before on this forum, Moore looked immeasurably better, and objectively as good as he did in “Octopussy”, when he presented the “Happy Anniversary 007” documentary in 1986/87.
Happy Christmas to all =)
Wow. So many things to say. I’m playing catch-up after the power was out in Toronto for several days…
To put my feelings on Moore in perspective, I’ve softened to his portrayal now, but when I was a kid I proudly proclaimed that I wasn’t a Roger Moore fan, I was a James Bond fan – two totally different characters in my mind. He’s still my least favourite Bond, and I’ve yet to see either Moonraker or A View to a Kill. When I was a kid, it was because I worshipped Connery as Bond – he was exactly the man I wanted to be when I grew up and when you’re younger you often have an either/or attitude towards fandom, or as I call it now, “There can only be one!” syndrome.
Having said that, Connery’s terrycloth playsuit from GF is one of the sartorial low points of the series for me, and when I look at Moore’s more fashionable outfits from the 70s I readily acknowledge that, were I an adult in the 70s, that’s likely what I would have worn.
So that’s the long way of me saying that my philosophy is that it isn’t “who” is right, but “what” is right.
I can’t recall seeing anyone wearing velour tracksuits in the early 80s, although that may be because I grew up in a very conservative place. So I can’t make a judgement about where they fit into the fashion spectrum at the time. I do like the *idea* of Bond fitting into his environment i.e. Craig’s clothes during the parkour chase in CR, but this outfit just accentuates Moore’s age IMHO. It looks like he was watching TV in the common room of his old age home and decided to go out for a stroll…
Now, had he been wearing this, oh, I don’t know, in a HEALTH FACILITY like Connery in NSNA that would have helped the outfit incredibly. Velour or not, Moore’s physical condition notwithstanding, it may have looked in place there. But this – nope.
I should add – it will be interesting to see posts on Connery’s Shrublands outfit in Never Say Never Again, and Craig’s outfit during the physical testing at MI6 in Skyfall. Interesting that all three outfits are relatively monochromatic.
I’m finishing up my article on the Never Say Never Again tracksuit to post shortly. Craig’s tracksuit will come later, and that’s the nicest one of all.
The tracksuit is neat and restrained and it suggests the luxury tastes of St.John Smythe. Also there is tactical sense in posing as a lost jogger while prying about in Zorin’s lab. The suit is subdued in comparison with FILA’s current line – a riot of colour. A shell suit confession – I used to sell the things in the 80’s. We told people they were made of “parasilk” – a natural silk treated to make it indestructible. Please forgive me.
The shoes (black trainers) are made by a brand called “Inter” they were a real budget brand, on a par with Hi tec. Sorry, I don’t know the model name though.
Thank you!
In a production still, he wears the tracksuit’s jacket instead of the dinner jacket at the party. http://m.imdb.com/gallery/rg4208302848/mediaviewer/rm2508992768
That’s absurdly awful.
The runners look like black Nike trainers. With some research I could figure out the model even.
Have a look at the tracksuit then look at Diana Rigg’s black catsuit from the Avengers. I percieve it as a reference.