Roger Moore as James Bond in Moonraker (1979). Photo sourced from thunderballs.org archive.
Vitals
Roger Moore as James Bond, suave and sophisticated British MI6 agent
Rio de Janiero, Brazil, February 1979
Film: Moonraker
Release Date: June 26, 1979
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Costume Designer: Jacques Fonteray
Tailor: Angelo Vitucci
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 00-7th of February! To warm up, let’s join James Bond on assignment in Rio de Janiero, his last stop in Moonraker before an unexpected detour into outer space, following both our villain Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) and the overall sci-fi trends of the late ’70s thanks to blockbusters like Star Wars.
Before strapping on a Drax Industries spacesuit, Bond dons a more characteristic suit with the tailored tuxedo he chooses to wear for Carnival, the annual Brazilian festival held every February—scheduled to start at the end of this week.
007 arrives at Carnival with MI6’s local contact Manuela (Emily Bolton), who falls victim to Bond’s old nemesis, the massive and metal-grilled Jaws (Richard Kiel), returning to the series after Kiel’s well-received appearance in The Spy Who Loved Me. Bond manages to elude Jaws until the following morning, when he reconnects with attractive American government scientist Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) on Sugarloaf Mountain and acquaints her with the gargantuan henchman now relentlessly pursuing them:
His name’s Jaws. He kills people.
Anyway, does anyone need a 7 Up?
Or would that be a 00-7 Up?
What’d He Wear?
Throughout the 1970s, Roger Moore’s Bond exclusively wore double-breasted dinner jackets, consistent with that decade’s revival of 1930s fashions when double-breasted evening-wear was prevalent. Each film featured a dinner jacket of a different color: off-white silk in The Man with the Golden Gun, midnight-blue mohair in The Spy Who Loved Me, and black in Moonraker, with a shine that also suggests mohair, a cool-wearing cloth for the Rio heat.
If Bond had hoped his dinner suit would hope him blend in at Carnival, he was rather misinformed as most of the male attendees (aside from those in the parade) sport casual shirts made of linen or floral-printed fabric.
Holly: Have you broken something?
Bond: (assessing his distressed dinner suit) Only my tailor’s heart.
In this case, the tailor in question is Angelo Vitucci of Angelo Roma, the Italian-based tailoring house that Roger Moore became a customer of in the late 1970s after he left England. Vitucci tailored all of Moore’s clothing in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, explaining the similar silhouettes and styles across both film’s wardrobes.
Aside from being constructed of black mohair rather than midnight-blue, Moore’s Moonraker dinner jacket could be a carbon copy of his evening-wear in The Spy Who Loved Me. The satin silk-faced peak lapels are fashionably wide for the era, rolling to a classic 6×2-button configuration, with all buttons—including the three on each cuff—covered in black silk to match the revers. Structured with straight, padded shoulders and a suppressed waist, the ventless jacket also has a welted breast pocket and the requisite straight jetted hip pockets.
Bond attempts to transition his evening suit into something more appropriate for the daytime by taking off his bow tie and letting that disco collar hang free.
Evidently, Bond’s mission kept him occupied all night as our well-tailored agent didn’t have the opportunity to return to his hotel to change into something more appropriate for the morning than his dinner suit, which he dresses down by removing his bow tie and undoing his top shirt button to wear its expansive collar flat over the lapels of his jacket, disco-style.
In their excellent volume From Tailors With Love, Matt Spaiser and Peter Brooker wrote of this moment that “this was emblematic of Bond’s wardrobe in the pre-Dalton era that fashion was more important than dressing for the occasion.” (You can read more of Mr. Spaiser’s expert commentary regarding this outfit at his excellent website Bond Suits.)
Made by legendary London shirtmaker Frank Foster, Bond’s white cotton evening shirt has a front placket framed by pleats on each side. The fashionably wide point collar looks restrained when Bond wears his black silk butterfly-shaped bow tie, but it looks more exaggerated undone and worn flat over his lapels. The two-button “cocktail cuffs” (also known as turnback cuffs) recall a Bond style tradition dating back to Sean Connery’s suits in the first 007 movie, Dr. No, though this would be the last we see of Bond’s cocktail cuffs until revived by Daniel Craig in Spectre.
Featuring Frank Foster’s signature placket, the wide-collared shirt looks proportional and restrained when worn as intended with Bond’s bow tie in place.
For a close-up shot of a captured Bond in the ambulance after the cable car incident, Bond wears a different white shirt with double cuffs fastened by large pearl two-hole buttons.
The tuxedo’s matching flat-front trousers feature a black satin silk waistband, which serves as a self-cummerbund given Bond’s typical distaste for traditional waist coverings and matches the traditional silk braid down each side seam. Consistent with Vitucci’s tailoring preferences, the trousers lack any visible pockets—even the traditional side pockets—and are fashionably flared through the plain-hemmed bottoms, though not as dramatically as some ’70s trousers like the reviled bell-bottoms.
Not worn with suspenders (braces) and evidently lacking side-adjusters or any other support system, Bond benefits from the trousers’ perfect fit that would make his predicament atop the Sugarloaf cable car even more embarrassing if his waistband failed to stay secure through the action.
Holly: “Hang on, James!”
Bond: “The thought had occurred to me.”
If audiences consider James Bond the epitome of a well-dressed man, outfits like this in Moonraker illustrate how comfortably Mr. Bond can break a few menswear “rules” because he knows he can. Black oxfords in patent leather or a well-shined calf leather have long been considered the most suitable footwear to accompany black tie, with exceptions made for formal opera pumps or well-maintained plain-toe derbies.
Whether it was Roger Moore’s personal preference or a tribute to Ian Fleming’s disdain for shoelaces that he passed on the literary 007, Moore’s Bond never wore lace-up shoes with his black tie ensembles. Of course, an elegant dresser like Sir Roger still wore elevated slip-ons crafted from black leather. In Moonraker, these are plain-toe slip-on shoes with raised heels and high vamps decorated with a self-strap across the instep.
..In Bond on Bond: Reflections on 50 Years of James Bond Movies, Moore recalls that he had a neighbor in Italy who was married to Salvatore Ferragamo’s son and was “horrified to see” that Moore’s Bond wore Gucci shoes and belts on screen. “From then on, Ferragamo supplied shoes, belts, and luggage for the films.” Worn with black dress socks, these black leather loafers are thus likely to be Ferragamo.
Product placement deals and the willingness of Moore’s Bond to buck menswear traditions resulted in the short period through the late ’70s when 007 wore digital watches—SEIKO, of course—with everything, including black tie. Purists who already considered Bond’s tasteful Rolex dive watches to be too sporty to accompany his evening-wear likely threw fits when they spied the digital displays of Sir Roger’s SEIKOs popping out from under his shirt cuffs.
Wow, Moonraker really gets me in the mood to kick back with a Seiko and a 7 Up. Anyone else?
For Moonraker, the Japanese watch giant outfitted Moore with a quartz-powered stainless steel SEIKO M354-5019 Memory-Bank Calendar watch (model #SFX003) on a 15mm-wide stainless five-piece bracelet that differs from the standard link bracelet.
The M354-5019 has a black-framed dual LC panel display, measuring 29mm wide and 26mm tall. A calendar across the top of the display shows the month, date, and day of the week, reserving the bottom 2/3rds of the display to show the time, which the user can toggle between a 12-hour or 24-hour indication. Ideal for prospective time travelers, SEIKO programmed the watch so that the calendar could display the calendar of any month within the 80-year period spanning January 1, 1930 through December 31, 2009.
In the midst of escaping from a space-traveling megalomaniac’s faux-ambulance and stricken with the sudden urge to know what day of the week it was when John Dillinger was killed? SEIKO’s got you covered. (And so do I: July 22, 1934 was a Sunday.)
Bond’s SEIKO had been modified by Q Branch with an integrated explosive mechanism that could be triggered by a remote detonator, as 007 would later demonstrate for the audience on the Moonraker launch platform. You can read more about this specific SEIKO and its usage in Moonraker at James Bond Lifestyle.
For the purposes of this post, my friend Ken Stauffer (author of the most recent BAMF Style post and curator of @oceansographer on Instagram) kindly lent me his own “Moonraker SEIKO”, rigged on the Bond-accurate bracelet.
Ken’s Moonraker SEIKO with my own well-loved copy of the source novel.
Moore attended the June 26, 1979 premiere of Moonraker at the Odeon Leicester Square in London wearing a dark double-breasted 6×2-button dinner jacket with an elegant sheen—almost certainly the same tuxedo he had worn on screen or at least a duplicate tailored for him by Angelo Roma.
Co-stars Corinne Clery, Roger Moore (already sporting his ffolkes beard for North Sea Hijack), and Richard Kiel at the Moonraker premiere in June 1979. Photo credit: Harry Myers/REX
How to Get the Look
Lois Chiles and Roger Moore in Moonraker (1979). Photo sourced from thunderballs.org archive.
Even if an evening at Brazilian Carnival and the following day spent sightseeing are hardly appropriate opportunities for black tie, Roger Moore continued blending ’30s-inspired elegance with late ’70s fashionability in his black mohair double-breasted dinner jacket with a long-collared shirt, flared trousers, heeled slip-ons, and digital SEIKO. Truly the man of the moment.
- Black mohair double-breasted 6×2-button dinner jacket with satin-faced peak lapels, satin-covered six-on-two button front, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, satin-covered three-button cuffs, and ventless back
- White cotton evening shirt with large point collar, front placket and pleated bib, and two-button cocktail cuffs
- Black silk butterfly/thistle-shaped bow tie
- Black mohair flat-front formal trousers with black satin side stripe, black satin fitted waistband, no pockets, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
- Black leather self-strap raised-heel loafers
- Black lisle dress socks
- SEIKO M354-5019 Memory-Bank Calendar (SFX003) stainless-cased quartz watch with black-framed date/time digital display on stainless five-piece bracelet
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
Don’t talk to any strange men, I’ll be back.
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