How Will James Bond Dress Now That Jeff Bezos Is at the Wheel?

In the wake of the announcement that the James Bond franchise will now peek out from under the looming wing of Amazon Studios, perhaps the next film’s costume department will find inspiration in their new boss’s wardrobe.

Jeff Bezos is not a style icon, per se, but if you squint, it may be possible to look back at a time when the world’s third-richest human (currently) was kind of killing it, style wise. Well “killing it” might be a push, but there was a time when he wore nice clothes, and it wasn’t all muscle tees, leather bombers, and ten-gallon hats.

Looking at pictures of Bezos in the late ’90s—the early days of Amazon; before Jeff got jacked—he had the air of a cheerful university tech assistant. The kind of fella that would bumble into a lecture with a willing smile, ready to fix the projector or rejig the doohickey or whatever. He wore biiiig pleated slacks, blue button-down oxford shirts, and battered brown lace ups. Almost as if he was trying to look like the kind of trustworthy guy you should buy books from…

But I’d argue this look is exactly what the next Bond needs.

When Daniel Craig’s burst from the ocean in 2006, a new sartorial era began. In 2002’s Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan dressed more like a Benelux tax inspector than an international killing machine/top shagger, with shapeless suits, drab roll necks, and ties lifted straight from a government beaurocrat’s no-pile.

But just three years later and Bond was ripped—maybe too ripped?—and smashing his way around the South of France in barely there trunks, sharp-shouldered Brioni suits, and shawl-collar knitwear. He wasn’t just slick, he was macho. A quietly luxurious thug.

That vibe sustained throughout the Craig-era Bond. There were some nice polo shirts, and the odd bomber jacket worth a follow-up Google, but generally, everything just got tighter. By the time Bond was hot-footing it across the Mexico City rooftops in the opening sequence of Spectre (2015), his Tom Ford suit simply didn’t fit.

In Craig’s last outing, 2021’s No Time To Die, the sartorial-bro fever was briefly broken when Bond was found scrapping in a nice corduroy suit by Milanese chill-practitioner, Massimo Alba. But come the final scene—spoiler alert—when Bond unexpectedly met his maker, our man went down wearing a blood-spattered henley, the official T-shirt of lumberjacks, bikers, and men who think Jordan Peterson might have a point, actually.

But now that a new Bond is on the horizon, I think we need a reset. Bond has always been a menswear guy, but he doesn’t need to be so gruff with it. Let’s keep the suits but make them high waisted and dramatic. Big shoulders; fat lapels, a la American Gigolo-era Richard Gere or Wall Street-era Ralph Lauren. Think how many guns he could get under his jacket.

So enough of the corporate dandy nonsense, let’s get him into some nice vintage ties, some floor-length overcoats, some delicate, impractical loafers that fall off when he runs and some droopy old Teba jackets. It worked for Timothy Dalton in Licence to Kill—the coolest Bond?—and it could work again.

Failing that, get him in a pair of ’90s-era Bezos big slacks and some battered old Oxfords—it’s probably what an ex-Etonian civil servant would wear, anyway.