FASHION Magazine
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MEN’S FASHION: Editor’s letter Fall 2012
Photographed by Seiji Fujimori and styled by Mark Holmes, Michael Shannon wears a jacket, $1,295, by Burberry London, shirt, $295, by Dolce & Gabbana, and tie, $125, by BOSS Black. Grooming by Kumi Craig. It must be that everyman sees himself in James Bond. That’s what happened to me in the course of researching the subject, which arose by way of Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style, the exhibition coming from the Barbican Centre in London to the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto in October.
The more I looked into Bond, the more I saw the secret agent as magnificent lifestyle editor, a material boy engaged with all the things—cars, drink, food, travel, toys—that are covered in a men’s magazine. And so caught up with appearances that, as author Jay McInerney once observed, he was “the only movie hero we had ever seen whose first impulse, after killing a man, was to straighten his tie.”
Of course, Bond came to film from fiction already infatuated with brand names. That was part of the character given to him by his creator, Ian Fleming, who in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service not only specifies Bond’s champagne but also what he uses to wash his hair: Pinaud Elixir, “that prince among shampoos.”