There is a telling moment in Tenet when John David Washington meets Sir Michael Caine for lunch at his posh London club. “Your Brooks Brothers suit won’t cut it in these circles,” Caine informs him dismissively, in a riff on the time-honoured “let me recommend you my tailor” routine. It’s the closest the movie gets to acknowledging that Washington’s character is a black man negotiating an overwhelmingly white world of power, wealth and social barriers. But it is also an admission that Tenet itself dearly wants to be considered in “those circles”.
Despite the men’s suit being a symbol of establishment conformity in real life, it still triggers associations of masculine status and dashingness on screen. Wear a good suit and you’re channelling Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery, even Caine himself. American action heroes such as Tom Cruise prefer more practical combat gear these days, but for a certain strain of British cinema especially, the tailoring is as crucial as the spycraft, from Guy Ritchie’s The Man from UNCLE to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (John le Carré noted a certain dandyism in British spies of the era). Doubling down on the suits in Inception, Tenet’s superior sartorial game puts Christopher Nolan firmly in the club.
Next up, we’ve another instalment in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman franchise, whose secret society is named after and headquartered within a Savile Row tailor’s shop. Vaughn was inspired by a visit to his real-life tailor’s, Huntsman, which has served as both location and outfitter to the movies. Again, the suit maketh the spy in Kingsman, hence street kid Taron Egerton’s Pygmalion-like makeover in the first movie. By contrast, the villain, Samuel L Jackson, accessorises his Ascot suit with a baseball cap – the horror! The King’s Man, a prequel set in the early 20th century, doubtless hinges on Ralph Fiennes’s ability to tie a Windsor knot.
Then, in November, we arrive at ground zero of suit fetishisation: James Bond. There are entire websites devoted to James Bond’s suits. Dressing the part has been an element of the Bond code from the start. Connery references his Savile Row tailor in Dr No, just as in Casino Royale, having mentally taken Daniel Craig’s measurements, Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd orders him up a proper dinner jacket. As with Washington, his old suit won’t cut it in “these circles”.
But what’s this? In preview images from No Time to Die, Craig is sporting a beige corduroy suit – and braces! When Barack Obama wore a tan suit at the presidential podium six years ago he was criticised as “un-presidential” by some critics – as with Washington, the implication was that he didn’t belong in the club. It shouldn’t matter but in spy movies, as in life, the code you really have to crack is the dress one.
