Sean Connery as James Bond and Claudine Auger as Domino
in Thunderball (dir. Terence Young, 1965)
Everyone loves gingham, don't they?
The medium-weight, plain-woven cotton fabric which, although originally striped when imported into Europe in the 17th-century, is now famous for its checked pattern (often in blue and white).
The beauty of gingham is not only its extreme versatility, but that it seems to mean whatever people want it to mean. For example, it can signify wholesome innocence when worn by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939), or it can signify stylish sophistication when worn by English mods and French sex kittens.
It can even signify that one has a licence to kill - did Sean Connery's Bond ever look better than when wearing an unbuttoned camp-collared pink and white gingham short-sleeved shirt (with matching Jantzen shorts and Wayfarer-style sunglasses) on the beach in Thunderball (1965)?
I don't think so ... Unless it's in the blue version of the shirt that he also wears in Thunderball, or, indeed, the long-sleeved gingham shirt that he sports on screen two years earlier in From Russia with Love (1963).
This shirt, which Bond naturally wears in a casual manner - untucked and with the sleeves turned back - is also in cornflower blue and comes with two large square patch hip pockets. It's fastened with distinctive silver-toned metal buttons.
It all just goes to show that real men are unafraid to wear whatever the hell they want and can make anything look masculine ...
Sean Connery as James Bond and Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench
in From Russia with Love (dir. Terence Young, 1963)
