A picture of good stealth
Kingsman: The Secret Service focuses on a council estate kid named Eggsy who, after getting bailed out of jail by his late father’s fellow secret agent, is inducted into the organization. As he and his fellow recruits are put through their paces via an ultra-competitive training program, a twisted tech genius hatches a plot to decimate mankind and the clandestine group is called into action to save the world.
Having worked on the offbeat superhero adventure Kick-Ass and the well-received X-Men: First Class, British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn knows a thing or two about blending high-octane action with cheeky humor. His Kingsman wears its heritage proudly on its sleeve, one that riffs on the spy-action-thriller tradition of 1960s television series The Avengers and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. But when Eggsy, played by Welsh newcomer Taron Egerton, completes his evolution from troubled teen to super spy, Vaughn unwittingly revealed another possible source of inspiration: George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
Cut to last
Tasked with articulating Eggsy’s Eliza Doolittle-like transformation was American costume designer Arianne Phillips, who has received two Oscar nominations for Walk the Line and W.E. and a BAFTA nomination for A Single Man. “We played with the proportion of the length of the jacket, modernized the shoulders and cut a slim flat front but adjustable trouser. The result was something practical for the modern spy and the modern man — stealth-like and stylish, not too trendy and cut to last,” Phillips told Fashionista.com.
Vaughn and Phillips, in collaboration with online retailer Mr. Porter, have even launched a line not only to celebrate the film but to give viewers the opportunity to purchase items straight off the screen. The 60-piece Kingsman collection includes Lock & Co. hats, customized watches from Bremont, silk ties from Drake’s and Deakin & Francis cufflinks. Conway Stewart Pens and Swaine Adeney Brigg umbrellas are also available.
Spy chic
Whenever a British spy caper hits the theaters, the world somehow always congratulates it for being so stylish — and for good reason. In 2011, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carré’s novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy gave many publications the license to ruminate on the spy aesthetic, which sounds a bit absurd because spies should have no identifiable style if they are to successfully blend in anywhere.
“The name’s Core. Norm Core”: Daniel Craig is seen here at the set of the the next Bond film, Spectre.
The film, about a master agent roused from retirement to weed out a mole in Britain’s MI6, stars British greats such as Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, and Gary Oldman — donning costumes that ticked all the right ’70s period costume boxes. “This group of men in English society were never particularly fashionable, and where they went was a square mile in London, Jermyn Street, Savile Row, Bond Street, Mayfair, and the small boutique shops in Burlington Arcade,” said costume designer Jacqueline Durran to GQ. As these characters were unconcerned with the giddy transitions of the fashion world, the sartorial signals are quite subtle and require a studious glance.
‘Merino royale’
While the peculiarly British brand of spy chic in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy owes more to Ian Fleming’s Bond than to the glitzy ostentation of Pierce Brosnan’s 007, Daniel Craig’s secret agent is indebted to none other than Tom Ford. “The suits that he produced were absolutely amazing in quality and in cut. They were the same sort of quality that you can find on Savile Row: hand-made, hand-finished. And the quantity was gigantic. For the opening sequence, with the light grey suit, we had 60 of them,” Skyfall costume designer Jany Temime told Esquire in 2012.
Temime will return for Spectre, the 24th James Bond film, which will be the fourth outing for Craig as 007 and will be released in November. At a press conference to announce the project in December last year, Craig sported a sensible get-up of grey trousers, a white shirt and a round-necked, blue sweater, an outfit that prompted Twitter users to react in dismay. The “granddad jumper,” a model by London-based cashmere specialist N.Peal, was far removed from the La Perla swim trunks he wore in Casino Royale in what was to become his defining Bond moment.
“This film is more exciting, more beautiful and more spectacular than the last. I am very happy,” Temime has commented on the official James Bond site, mindfully refusing to let slip any of the crucial wardrobe details of the film. “Manners maketh man,” said Harry Hart, Colin Firth’s character in Kingsman. In this case, as costumes increasingly become part of a film’s marketing strategy, prudence maketh woman as well.
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