CONDUIT
C UT
Indeed, Mason now runs what he calls 'a tiny tailoring business' – under the Anthony Sinclair
name and the craftsmanship of master tailor Richard Paine, Sinclair's one-time apprentice – that
is soon to be eclipsed by an online retail operation selling clothing and accessories linked to the
Bond heritage. Recently launched was, for instance, the result of a collaboration with Slazenger to
create an updated version of the burgundy v-neck sweater that Connery wears to play golf, also in
'Goldfinger'. It was, notes Mason with a smile, in a limited edition of 00–700...
Certainly, that the Anthony Sinclair name is known at all today is arguably the product of a
series of lucky breaks. First, Young thought that the anachronistic cut of his suits would be perfect for
Connery. 'Sinclair worked with a lot of military clients – guys in pretty good shape who didn't want that
boxy cut and those padded shoulders popular through the 1950s, who preferred a more athletic,
hacking jacket cut, with a natural shoulder, plenty of movement across the chest, a suppressed waist
and flared skirt. It was what his clients called the Conduit cut, just because Sinclair was based on
Conduit Street then. He only referred to it as "drape and shape" himself,' explains Mason.
'But it just happened to be perfect for an ex-bodybuilder like Connery – in the fashionable
suits of the time he would have looked like a nightclub bouncer,' Mason adds. 'And all that room in
this chest left room for one's wallet or cigarette case – or Walther PPK.'
For a while Sinclair did well out of the Bond association – he got a contract to design a
collection for Montague Burton, the pioneer of men's ready-to-wear. George Lazenby, Connery's
successor in the Bond role – briefly at least – did his casting dressed in Anthony Sinclair, though
the production chose to dress him otherwise. The light eventually faded on Sinclair's name and he
returned to two more decades of steady jobbing tailoring, and then retirement.
That was until about 2000, when Mason – who, to cut a long story short, parlayed a fascination
with tailoring into working under seminal tailor Tommy Nutter's partner Edward Sexton – discovered
by chance that Pierce owned the Anthony Sinclair brand name. Surely, Mason suggested, that was
a name ripe for revival. 'I mean, he tailored for Richard Burton and Warren Beatty, but that meant
nothing alongside being the tailor to James Bond,' says Mason, with boyish enthusiasm. But Pain,
Sinclair's professional heir, was unconvinced, until another lucky break forced their hand.
'Curators at the Barbican got in touch to ask whether they could borrow a suit from the
Anthony Sinclair archive for their big 50th anniversary Bond exhibition in 2011,' says Mason. 'We
had to tell them they we didn't have an archive, but could make them a suit. Bizarrely, almost at the
same time Channel 4 asked me to value something for them a show – a suit a chap owns whose dad
worked at Pinewood Studios during the 60s. He had suit number five of seven from "You Only Live
Twice". This was the only original Sinclair-for-Connery-for-Bond suit in existence. And then he sold
it to a collector. Fortunately, he was excited about in some way bringing it home to its maker.'
“He tailored for Richard Burton
and Warren Beatty, but that
meant nothing alongside being
the tailor to James Bond”
Caption style for imagery
Previous Page: Caption style for imagery
5 5
WWW. STGE ORG EPLC .CO M