Style Archive: a series in which we celebrate the stars of the past that made menswear what it is today. This week: Pierce Brosnan, and the wardrobe of a moneyed megalomaniac.
By all accounts, James Bond should not be in the gainful employment of MI6. He's never on time. His government-issued licence to kill is abused almost daily. Despite several warnings about office romances, Bond continues to defecate on the proverbial doorstep. He is, in short, a villain of the nine-to-five. Especially during Pierce Brosnan's stint as the superspy.
Where his fellow 007s so often settled for wholesome British garb (Daniel Craig fought summer in linen, while Sean Connery canonised today's menswear classics almost 60 years ago), Brosnan did the opposite. This wasn't clean-cut, Savile Rowed splendour. This was loose. Colourful. A little bit filthy. And a lot like the rogue Texan oil heir that Bond, sadly, never got to battle in a burning refinery.
For during his youth, Brosnan took risks bigger than a movie studio's decision to hire Timothy Dalton. Except these actually paid off. At the 1996 premiere of Nomads, the actor went spaghetti-junction western, combining a bolo tie and El Paso battle armour with an oily, metallic palette. Since those were the days when VIPs could wear the same thing twice – and when a jaunt to Stringfellows wasn't deeply depressing and problematic – the gentleman spy attended the gentlemen's club in the same gilded suit with an extra clash below in the form of a poppy-into-paisley printed Cuban collared shirt.
But what does a megalomaniac billionaire wear on the downtime? What's an appropriate outfit for a morning spent conspiring with a woman who'll lead to Bond's next black mark from HR? The same Cuban collar shape, but this time with a jazzier, private island aesthetic, much like the sort Brosnan wore to a 1996 LA fundraiser. This isn't heroic, dashing, open the door for you m'lady menswear. This is open-shirted, smoking-openly while-people-are-eating, pairing-denim-with-tailoring-and-your-best-New-England-loafers menswear. Rule-breaking, then, in precisely the way we're championing again right now. Indeed, the return of big, Nineties silhouettes means the Brosnan mishmash is positively encouraged. Louis Vuitton and Marni are two of the brands to baggy-up for AW19.
Back then Brosnan's take was more colourful, and more at odds with the role that arguably defined his career. It's a sharper act in 2019: the now 66-year-old is going classic in his silver age. But when blockbuster premieres dictated your Friday night Blockbuster rental, and when James Bond faced off against villains with exquisitely crass one-liners, GoldenEye's golden boy was dressing for the enemy. After all, his behaviour wasn't all that dissimilar.
