Suits & Shirts · The 007 Series · Menswear 2026
The Spy Who Loved Me: The Bond Who Dressed the Fashion of His Time
A Roman tailor, a quartz Seiko and a Lotus that dives: how Roger Moore turned 1977 into a wardrobe, and what still holds up.
Some Bond films are remembered for the villain, others for the suit. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) is remembered for almost everything, which makes it odd that its wardrobe is one of the most argued-over in the series. Bond Suits, the standard reference on 007's clothes, scores it 5 out of 10 and calls it Moore's worst-dressed Bond film.
The context explains a lot. The film followed The Man with the Golden Gun, which had modest returns and a cool critical reception, and it came out with Harry Saltzman gone from Eon after selling his half of the franchise. It grossed over $185 million, Moore has named it his favourite, and many critics rank it the best of his run.
Three things changed in the wardrobe at once: the tailor, the watch and the car. A British icon dressed by a Roman hand, with Japanese quartz on the wrist and a Turin-designed sports car in the garage. This piece looks at all three, and separates what aged badly from what still works.
The Rule: When the Silhouette Shouts, the Classic Holds
Bond Suits sums up the wardrobe in a line worth keeping: Bond stops adopting trends and starts embodying them. Lapels around 4¼ inches wide, flares that open above the knee, shirt collars of roughly four inches, and tabbed cuffs inspired by Ted Lapidus.
The film holds together because it anchors that excess in three garments that were already old in 1977: the naval uniform, the navy blazer and the double-breasted dinner jacket. Those are the pieces still worth looking at today.
Angelo Roma: The Roman Hand of 1977
Moore left Cyril Castle, the tailor of his first two films, when he became a tax exile in 1975, and went looking for a new house. He found Angelo Roma, founded, according to Bond Suits, by Angelo Vitucci, a former Brioni model and manager. There is little documentation on the relationship between the actor and the firm, and it is worth saying so.
What you can see on screen is a Roman cut: straight, padded shoulders, lightly roped sleeve heads and a very close fit through the body. Bond Suits compares it to the Brioni clothes Pierce Brosnan would later wear, though Moore's jackets are cut considerably trimmer.
Wardrobe credits
Tailoring: Angelo Roma. Shirts: Frank Foster. Footwear: Gucci and Ferragamo (horsebit loafers). Wardrobe supervisor: Rosemary Burrows.
A curious technical detail: the trousers show no front or side pockets, no belt and no visible adjusters. They stay up on the fit at the waist alone.
The Double-Breasted Dinner Suit: The Piece That Saves It All
It is the first full dinner suit Moore wears on screen as Bond, and probably his most recognisable image. It appears in the Egyptian temple against Jaws, and in the opening gun barrel sequence that was reused in the next four films. That is why Moore carries a reputation for flares for longer than he deserves.
The colour is uncertain: black or midnight blue, according to Bond Suits, which sees a lighter blue than expected in many shots. The cloth looks like a mohair and wool blend, crisp and lustrous, which also wears cooler in the Egyptian sun. The lack of vents gives it the look of classic 1930s and 1940s cinema, and that is why the jacket ages better than the trousers.
Black tie rules: when it works
Black tie is traditionally an evening code: dinners, galas and weddings that run into the night. A double-breasted dinner jacket is worn buttoned and without a waistcoat. For a daytime ceremony, the morning coat or a suit is still the rule.
Navy and White: The Naval Bond
The film brings back the naval dress uniform from You Only Live Twice and adds a double-breasted greatcoat, another garment of military tradition. It is a clever way to dress Bond without fighting the trends: a uniform with classic lapels cannot look like a joke. In the final act Bond wears a naval battledress from the costumier Bermans & Nathans, with brass buttons and patch pockets.
The coherence has a root in Fleming: Bond is a Commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. With this wardrobe Moore ends up as "the naval Bond", as Bond Suits puts it.
The best civilian look in the film follows the same line. It is a navy hopsack blazer (a basket weave that breathes well) with four-hole silver-toned metal buttons instead of traditional shanked ones, hacking pockets with narrow flaps, a ticket pocket and swelled edges. The slim flaps cut bulk at waist and hips.
He wears it with white lightweight wool trousers, a blue striped silk shirt and a blue silk shantung tie. The flared hems of the white trousers echo, almost by accident, the bell-bottoms of a sailor. Bond wears the outfit on a speedboat, in Atlantis and inside the submersible Lotus. Nautical, coherent and restrained.
Where the blazer comes from
The most repeated legend places its origin in the Royal Navy, with a captain who dressed his crew in blue jackets for a royal visit. It is more tradition than record, which is why the blazer still carries metal buttons of naval inspiration.
Earth and Silk: Safari, Brown and the Risk of Dressing the Year
The film's safari jacket is tan, probably in cotton poplin. It has shoulder straps, patch hip pockets with flaps, a set-in flap breast pocket, a half-belt at the back, sleeve straps and topstitching. It fastens with two buttons, and Bond Suits considers it far better resolved than the cream one in The Man with the Golden Gun.
It came from another Moore film, Street People (1976), where it was part of a suit. Here he pairs it with cream lightweight wool trousers, a blue voile shirt with Lapidus cuffs and a wide blue and red striped tie. The garment's roots are French: Ted Lapidus and Yves Saint Laurent are the designers credited with making it chic. Moore had already worn the style on television, in The Persuaders.
The light brown silk suit is the one that has held up least. It is a very Italian garment, with patch pockets and swelled edges, worn two days running: first with a striped shirt and wide striped tie, all in browns, then with an ecru shirt. Bond Suits ranks it among Moore's poorest looks as 007: the shade reaches neither the Italian tobacco brown nor the subtlety of British fawn.
⚠ What time took apart
The flare from the knee up, which swallows the line of the jacket. The four-inch collar with a 2½-inch bow tie, an obvious mismatch. Tonal brown with not one contrast, which swallows the wearer.
The best-dressed man in the film
According to Bond Suits, Jaws (known as Tiburón in Spain) is among the best-dressed men in the cast, in a three-piece suit and a double-breasted blazer: seventies proportions flatter his enormous frame far more than they do an average man.
The Watch: A Quartz Seiko on 007's Wrist
The star of the film is the Seiko 0674-5009 (model DK001), a digital liquid-crystal quartz watch. In the story it receives a ticker-tape message from MI6. According to one specialist source, that function was a prop and the real model printed nothing.
Moore had come from wearing a Hamilton Pulsar digital in Live and Let Die. Here he goes a step further: on screen, Bond's wrist stops being Swiss and mechanical. Moore is credited with popularising Seiko quartz against the mechanical watch, though no figures prove it.
And the Rolex?
Several sources link a Rolex GMT-Master (ref. 1675) to Moore in this film, but they disagree on how much of it is seen on screen: some point to publicity photographs. What is documented is the Seiko.
A tailor's rule: with a dinner suit, a slim dress watch. The digital belongs with daywear.
The Car: A Lotus Esprit with Italian Hands
The Lotus Esprit S1 began as a concept by Giorgetto Giugiaro (ItalDesign) at the 1972 Turin Motor Show, with a "folded paper" line. The production version was shown at the 1975 Paris Motor Show and the first cars were delivered in 1976.
Lotus got into the shoot almost by accident: its head of press parked a prototype, badge taped on, outside the Pinewood offices. The producers asked for both prototypes. The Sardinian chase improved once Lotus test driver Roger Becker became the stunt driver.
The on-set nickname was Wet Nellie, a tribute to the Little Nellie autogyro of You Only Live Twice. The submersible was built by Perry Oceanographic for the film. In 2013 Elon Musk bought it at a London auction for £616,000. In 2008 The Times ranked it the second-best Bond car, behind the Aston Martin DB5.
Two decisions, one idea
Bond swaps the Aston Martin for an Italian-designed Lotus and the London tailor for a Roman one. In 1977 the British look is seen through Italian eyes. Both moves follow the same pattern: houses of British tradition, or inspired by it, with an Italian hand.
What Remains: The Legacy in Menswear
An honest note: there is no solid data measuring how much this film shaped what men bought in 1977. What can be said is what we observe. Bond reflects mid-seventies Italian fashion, carries it to the big screen and fixes it in memory. And from that memory, time has kept some pieces and discarded others.
- —Navy hopsack blazer: wool of roughly 9 to 10 oz (250 to 300 gsm), metal buttons and hacking pockets. Mills such as Vitale Barberis Canonico or Holland & Sherry regularly work this weave.
- —White or cream straight trousers, in lightweight wool. The 1977 flare is a warning, nothing more.
- —Double-breasted peak-lapel dinner jacket, in wool and mohair. Bond Suits notes that Tom Ford has made very similar jackets for years.
- —Safari jacket, best in cotton or linen with fewer pockets, worn with low-contrast cream trousers.
- —All-black daywear, with a two-button collar shirt and a V-neck jumper. Bond Suits considers it easy to update today, with shorter collar points.
A wardrobe is judged by what it survives. Almost everything that was 1977 noise in The Spy Who Loved Me has expired: the flare, the collar, the brown. What has not expired are the pieces with centuries of history behind them: the uniform, the blazer, the dinner jacket.
The recommendation is concrete. If you invest in one garment inspired by this film, make it a well-constructed navy blazer, in a cloth with body and without fashion trimmings. It is the piece Moore wore with the most sense, and the one that will last longest in your wardrobe.
Trends pass. Navy, white and a good cut stay.
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