Is James Bond Still To Die For In 2024?

‘Of course, no man had ever really looked like him, but every man wanted to. And every woman wanted their man to look like him, too’, noted Dylan Jones in his latest book James Bond Style. Razor-sharp suiting coupled with perilous playboy lifestyle, and an exuberantly expensive (not to mention, lavish) taste are a few hallmarks of who the James Bond character is. But what about the so-called Bond Girl? I would be remiss to not mention one of cinema’s most famous legendary of companions while taking a walk through the James Bond universe; one Jones’ book has done so very well - a credit also owed to his costume designer companion and co-author Lindy Hemmings.

Bond’s female counterpart embodies (or at least used to) one of the best contradictions cinema has ever seen. Framed as hopelessly clueless but undeniably sexy (if anyone was to put the sex in sexy, it would be Bond’s female companion, no doubt) - it’s rather difficult to overstate just how integral glamour is to her equally seductive brand. However, no matter how much sex appeal she exudes, gold she’s dripped in or skin she shows, the old chestnut of using sex appeal to lure male and female audiences alike is - well, rather old school to say the least. And so, as I revisited the Bond world via Jones and Hemmings’ chronological retrospective of 007’s style, one question reigned above all: Is Bond and his trusty female companion - what with their poster faces and bodies for the stereotypical archetypes of masculinity and femininity - still relevant in 2024?

Bond wasn’t always destined to be an international star, so how did writer Ian Flemming first conceive what would become the face of masculinity? Although the author did describe him in Moonraker as ‘[a] rather saturnine young man in his middle thirties…something a bit cold and dangerous in that face. Looks pretty fit… [a] tough-looking customer’, the cultural phenomenon Bond would later become was truly unbeknownst to Flemming. Alas, we can’t grant the award-winning writer all the credit, there are other factors at play too.

If you thought Flemming’s literary Bond was a success, the performance of Sean Connery and Ursula Andress in Dr. No bolstered these characters into an entirely different stratosphere as the smart suiting of Connery’s Bond inspired men around the world. Master acting came together with master costume design and the rest is history. Want proof? Adam Brown, founder of Orlebar Brown, the British suiting company, reflects, ‘I had pictures of Sean Connery as James Bond on my very first mood boards. He epitomised suave, elegant, timeless style… He has and will always be one of the world’s greatest style inspirations.’

Bond’s effect on the male psyche wasn’t mutually exclusive to suiting, but also when he went sans clothing. Daniel Craig’s emergence from the ocean in tight blue briefs in the 2015 hit Casino Royale made ‘the modern man who was already conscious of his summer body prior to this film… pushed in a particular direction to achieve alpha male status’, according to Hemmings. If you so much as cast a thought back to just ten years ago, you’d realise how true the costume designer’s words really are. After all, the journey towards more diverse casting has been a long and arduous one but if one thing is for sure, (weight aside) we all know a culture of white-only casting on screen would never fly in 2024. Does that make such depictions outdated? Daniel Craig’s last performance as Mr Bond was only three years ago but in the world of repetitive news-cycled junk? That’s a lifetime. A lot has changed in the last six months, let alone three years.

Bond, himself, isn’t the only outdated aspect of the franchise. Over its evolution the Bond Girl has been reformulated many times over. Following audience outcry over the two-dimensional sexist representation of the Bond Girl, Wai Lin was introduced. Played by Michelle Yeoh in 1997, she describes, in James Bond Style, Wai Lin as, ‘...the first Bond Girl who is on a par with Bond, someone who can match up with him mentally and physically.’

Since Yeoh’s role, the Bond Girl metamorphosed into an equal partner or adversary. Her style, as charted throughout James Bond Style, indicates such. Going from an exotic seductress - who wears bedazzled lingerie like Jill St. John’s Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever - to a still-sexy but sensible equal, wearing modest pieces that keep movement in mind (think Eva Green’s green dress when she played Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale or Léa Seydoux’s bias-cut satin gown in Spectre) signalled that the Bond girl wasn’t stiff as previously thought but instead fluid and ever-changing - just like Bond himself… right?

While the Bond Girl has evolved, audiences are asking for more - and so they should. But what do the people want? A transfer of power. Simple. If the Bond Girl is an equal adversary then why can’t Bond be a woman? Gone are the days of Bond’s hypermasculinity and the Bond Girl’s hyperfeminity. Now, it’s all about blurring the lines between these characters. So, while 007’s glamorous aesthetic presents itself as a masterclass in timeless style, the characters themselves are less trendy, so much so they are in dire need of a modern-day revamp. As for the book itself? It’s pretty, sure. But it also has a considerable amount of substance, which is where it’s worth every penny of the £100 it’s retailed at; a truth I'm unwilling to attach to the Bond movies in 2024. Could the next Bond be black? Could they be a woman, even? Yes. Yes, yes and yes again - that would be true sex appeal in 2024.