The creative choices, acumen and outcomes of many artists who work on a film are so often ignored and misunderstood – and confused with off-the-peg labelling rather than deeper stitches into how fashions, zeitgeist, youth culture and cinema can echo or evolve all our costuming choices. Academic writer Llewella Chapman will now rectify this by opening the wardrobe and culture to an new examination on the costuming, suits and sense of gender and representation of the Bond films in a 2021 publication called Fashioning James Bond.

‘Fashioning James Bond provides the first full-length critical study of the costume and fashion evident in the James Bond films. Its methodological approach includes research generated from archives, close textual analysis of the costumes and fashion brands presented within the James Bond films, interviews with families of tailors and shirt-makers who assisted in creating the ‘look’ and fashion for the character of James Bond, and critical reception and the marketing strategies for the films, promoted to create a ‘James Bond lifestyle.’ – Bloomsbury

Bond’s Savile Row era, marketing, 1990s Italian influences, the Tom Ford era, how a suit created both Connery and 007 and then had to do it all over again for the other fellas, the designers themselves and those that have made sartorial, marketing and retail choices for and around 007 are all part of the cut of this new interesting publication.

More info.

FASHIONING JAMES BOND – COSTUME, GENDER AND IDENTITY IN THE WORLD OF 007 by Llewella Chapman
October 21 2021
Price: £17 (paperback)
Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN / 9781350258488