James Bond demonstrates that an evening shirt, a shirt meant to be worn with a dinner jacket, can make for a surprisingly stylish beach shirt. Most beaches have no dress code, so anything goes. Generally this means people can dress down as much as they want and dress as scantily as they want, with some beaches permitting full nudity. But since stylish women on the beach wear ornate swimsuits and glamorous swimsuit coverups, there’s room for men to dress more creatively on the beach too. A stylish man can wear more than just swim shorts and a T-shirt. What could be better than wearing an airy white shirt on the beach?
Orlebar Brown introduced me to the idea of a white pleated-front shirt designed to wear on the beach rather than with a dinner jacket. As part of their initial 007 collection in 2019, they released a shirt inspired by George Lazenby’s shirt in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but it was not a replica. They made the shirt in linen instead of cotton voile so it looks more casual. They left out the ruffles between the pleats, but they made the pleats extend to the hem. They used button cuffs rather than double cuffs to avoid the need for cufflinks. This shirt was intended to be worn both untucked on the beach and tucked for dressier tropical settings. The shirt has tails, which don’t look as good as a straight hem when worn untucked.
Though Orlebar Brown made an unusual shirt, it’s an inspired creation that thinks outside the box while not forgetting the needs of a man in the tropics. Could Bond’s actual dress shirts have made proper beach shirts?
For one reason or another, Bond frequently finds himself spending the night out and wears parts of his dinner suit the next morning. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and For Your Eyes Only, Bond shows off his formal pleated-front shirt on the beach the morning after spending the night away from his hotel and change of clothes. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service he removes his dinner jacket, bow tie and shoes—but leaves his black socks on—and opens his shirt collar when running to save his future wife from drowning herself. In For Your Eyes Only he gets dressed the following morning for a stroll on the beach in his shirt, dinner suit trousers, socks and shoes. He dressed for the beach wearing only the clothes he had to hand.
The shirt is the standout garment in these two impromtu Bond beach looks. Both of these shirts are made by Frank Foster. Foster’s pleated-front shirts—with fashionable ruffles interspersed between the pleats in the Majesty’s shirt—make for better beach wear than the average pleated-front dress shirt for two reasons, assuming that a beach shirt is worn untucked. The first is that like casual shirts, all of Foster’s shirts are cut with a straight hem with vents at the sides, which looks better than shirt tails when worn untucked. Most people don’t wear a tucked shirt on the beach. The second is that the pleats extend to the bottom—rather than in a bib—so that they look more presentable in an untucked shirt.
The most significant roadblock to wearing these two shirts casually is that they have double cuffs. Though Bond doesn’t do it, the sleeves can always be rolled up for the beach.
The Moonraker pleated-front evening shirt, also made by Frank Foster, is another shirt that Bond wears casually the following morning after a night out, but this time the dinner jacket remains with only the bow tie removed. Though he’s not at the beach, he’s in close proximity to it on Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, and there are plenty of bikini-clad women dressed for the beach where Bond boards the cable car. The Moonraker shirt makes for an even better beach shirt than the two evening shirts discussed above because it has cocktail cuffs rather than double cuffs. Cocktail cuffs dress down well because they have no inherent formality, and there are no cufflinks to get lost in the sand. Though short sleeves are typical for the beach, long sleeves have the benefit of providing more sun protection.
All of these evening shirts have a pleated front. The pleated-front dress shirt has a jaunty and flamboyant look, which particularly comes out when worn outside of the traditional dinner jacket setting. Compared to the marcella-front dress shirt, which is an older and more formal evening shirt style, the pleated-front shirt is less formal and works better in a casual context. The marcella-bib shirt looks too formal for the beach and the bib is awkward if worn without a waist-covered or worn untucked. The standard English pleated-front shirt takes buttons rather than studs, which also lends these shirts better to dressing down.
The shirts in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Moonraker are made of white cotton voile, a high-twist cotton that is lightweight and airy, making these shirts ideal for hot weather and thus so wearable for the beach. Voile drapes well and resists wrinkles, lending it a neater appearance than almost any other cotton. It is sheer, but that isn’t a problem for a beach shirt.
The For Your Eyes Only shirt is made in a white-on-white stripe cotton, lending it extra interest that serves it well as a shirt worn without a jacket. The fancy weave helps it resist wrinkles, though it may have also been woven with high-twist voile yarns to help it drape well. The shirting is partially sheer, which makes it practical for the beach without it being see-through like voile.
Not all pleated evening shirts work as well as these three shirts on the beach. The standard white poplin evening shirt looks too stiff and shiny to dress down for the beach. Silk is likewise too shiny and too delicate for the beach. Heavier cottons, like the waffle weave that Bond wears in Casino Royale, and dressier satin stripes, like what Bond wears in Goldfinger, are not suitable for a beach shirt either because heavy and dressy shirts cottons aren’t quite right for the beach.
Bond’s three shirts discussed here could be worn untucked with swimwear for the reasons presented. It may be an unorthodox way to wear these shirts, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t work, practically or stylishly. They could also be worn tucked or untucked with linen, cotton or tropical wool trousers in a tropical setting, particularly for a special occasion similar to how a guayabera is worn.
It has taken me some time to appreciate what Orlebar Brown achieved in designing a beach shirt inspired by evening wear. Though I probably wouldn’t wear an evening shirt on the beach unless I was in James Bond’s situations, I admire the sentiment and I think it can be done stylishly by a man with an adventurous sense of style. For now I will continue to use Thunderball‘s camp shirts as my primary inspiration for beach style.
‘For one reason or another, Bond frequently finds himself spending the night out and wears parts of his dinner suit the next morning’ . . . Best example = meeting Silva in ‘Skyfall’ and Bond’s in his Macau Tom Ford O’Connor shawl-collared dinner suit and aviator-styled shades – peak cool!
Matt, While no criticism of yourself for producing yet another very interesting article, I find the Orlebar Brown Bond range just an expensive gimmick. They’re a commercial company cashing in on niche line. Good for them.
The shirt they’ve produced here is a sartorial mess that doesn’t know what it’s meant to be and is trying to please, well, I don’t know who: a linen shirt with pleated front and single cuffs ! This is ridiculous and makes no sense on any level. A linen shirt is of its nature a summer season, casual shirt even if produced with a neat spread collar and Octopussy style large button cuffs as mine from FF is. An evening shirt will be produced as those in the three movies you show were produced and with the appropriate fabric and finish. If someone wants to emulate Bond in this scenario then buy a proper evening shirt which can be re-used in the future. Orlebar Brown clearly know that the title of Elizabeth Taylor’s first movie and the spirit of the story of that movie still holds true 82 years later!
I think Orlebar Brown were on the right track with the changes they made to turn an evening shirt into a beach shirt. It’s a casual shirt with decorative front pleats. I think it would have been better if it had the attention to detail found in a Frank Foster shirt, but I don’t see a problem with the concept.
Couldn’t agree more David.
I agree with you. Orlebar Brown is just money milking the Bond name and some people just buy everything that has 007 written on it even though Bond himself did not/would not wear it.
I also agree. There’s nothing in the collection which couldn’t be made by someone else, and you wouldn’t need to pay for the brand. I’m particularly unimpressed by the cream OHMSS inspired suit.
Another fantastic post Mat. I love this site. Nowhere else in the world would you see a discussion about which dress shirt is best for the beach and the risks of losing your cufflinks in the sand!
The whole idea of wearing anything remotely like an evening shirt (the clue’s in the name!) to the beach has a whiff of Richard Nixon wearing his wing tip brogues to the beach. Square peg – round hole.
Or put another way maybe Orlebar Brown’s idea is like the ill-conceived trend of ‘cross training shoes’ – shoes that were designed to be worn for running, weight lifting and playing tennis. Only they weren’t nearly as good as shoes designed specifically and separately for those activities. Keep your evening shirts for the casino. Keep your t shirt / polo shirt / rash guard for the beach. If there’s any likelihood that your casino activities may lead to a morning on the beach – plan ahead and pack wisely!
With the sad state of menswear nowadays you wouldn’t get away with wearing an evening shirt in most casinos…! Connery stuck out like a sore thumb in Vegas in DAF – and that was 1971!
The logical conclusion of that development is a terrycloth dinner shirt! Don’t leave us hanging, Orlebar Brown!
Hi Matt,
I was invited to a “beach formal” wedding in Maui next May. I would like to wear my Canali seersucker blazer (in the normal blue and white stripe most typical of seersucker) with navy tonal seersucker slacks. Is this mixing of seersuckers acceptable? Or would navy linen be preferable on bottom? Plan on wearing with white cotton-linen dress shirt, blue silk knit flat bottom tie, and black leather loafers. Thank you!
I would advise against mixing two different seersuckers, or two colours of the same cloth. Navy or cream linen would be better for the trousers.
I actually have done the inverse of this.
https://rodsmodblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/04/rods-togs-seersucker-x-2/
As I wrote in the comments I have no idea if it flaunts an established convention or not but from ten feet away it looks like a plain (tonal) navy blazer and light blue-grey strides so I say give it a dry run and if you like the way it looks go for it. You’ve got to feel good in what you wear, so if you have any reservations take the more conventional route as suggested by Matt.
I wrote a blog about combining textures, and I explain why texture needs to have contrast just like colours do to avoid clashing: https://www.bondsuits.com/how-james-bond-coordinates-texture-in-clothing/
I definitely wouldn’t wear a Frank Foster evening shirt to the beach! The Orlebar Brown shirt is not a bad idea, but I think something like it would be better with pintucks. Some women’s shirts still have them, but it was fairly popular on men’s casual shirts in the mid 2000s as I recall.
Wouldn’t surprise me though if a Frank Foster shirt were more affordable than the Orlebar Brown version lol
I don’t mind the concept of a pleated front linen shirt. It’s kind of fun and it is something a bit different from the dull concept of men’s beachwear. I say go for it. I also have a “proper” pleated front dress shirt which is going to get matched with some linen trousers for my holiday to the beach for an evening out look. I will report back as to the response from my fellow beachgoers.
OB’s 007 range can be hit and miss, but there are some nice pieces in the collection. There are also some that could have been done better: the Thunderball shorts – how difficult would it have been to add a belt??? The terry towelling polo shirts are very good.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to write this particular article, Matt. Very interesting and I like the discussion it has caused.