Bond appeals, and Connery’s Bond especially, because he’s very
masculine, even in a baby blue two piece towelling beach suit
The result was a spot in the exhibition – although not without some
wrangling with the curators, who insisted one suit was in a sharkskin, not,
as Mason and Pierce suggested, a check, an argument the latter team
won only thanks to the high definition of a Blu-ray edition of 'Goldfinger'. It
also led to a rush of orders from those Bond fanatics for their own genuine
bit of the secret agent's X factor.
'Bond appeals, and Connery's Bond especially, because he's very
masculine, even in a baby blue two piece towelling beach suit,' argues
Mason. 'And the fact is that the Sinclair style is very simple too. There are
no frills. It wasn't Sinclair's philosophy that a man should dress to stand out
from the crowd – just as a secret agent wouldn't want to. The Barbican
curators didn't believe that suit was checked because the check was that
subtle. It was all solid colour ties, white shirts, unfussy suits – with a white
linen pocket square, which was actually a Terence Young style tip. It was a
timeless look as a consequence. It was a look that epitomised the stylish
London gent of the period.'
And, it seems, even of those men of a certain age today – which
perhaps explains why, despite being a "tiny" business, in the few years
since the Barbican show Anthony Sinclair has clocked up 30,000-plus
Facebook followers. "Most of them probably don't want a suit," concedes
Mason, "but do want a little piece of Bond style from the man who
invented it. We recently did a series of ties in 24 plain colours to mark the
announcement of the 24th Bond film going into production. We really
weren't sure if we'd sell ties in cerise or orange. Yet they sold out, and went
to all corners of the world because of that Bond connection."
But will it last? Mason theorises that every generation has its
sartorial heroes – "I remember, back when I was getting into the tailoring
business, plenty of older people talked admiringly of Cary Grant or Fred
Astaire. Who automatically thinks of them as style icons now? Perhaps in
time Connery's Bond will fade away in that manner too. But I do know that
Anthony Sinclair's name deserves to be preserved for his contribution to
tailoring history."