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26 June 2024
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28 June 2024Bond on Watch
James Bond has sampled quite a few watches during his many on-screen incarnations and his choices might inspire many a connoisseur
'R olex?’ says Vesper Lynd to James Bond in 2007’s Casino Royale, spotting his watch. ‘Omega,’ he replies. ‘Beautiful,’ Lynd purrs.
And in that short interchange between Daniel Craig’s secret agent and Eva Green’s improbably sexy government accountant lies a tale – not only of outrageous product placement, but of timepieces and Ian Fleming’s timeless creation.
Lynd’s mistake is understandable. Bond is a Rolex man. As Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, once said: ‘A gentleman’s choice of timepiece says as much about him as does his Savile Row suit.’ Fleming was a product of Eton, Sandhurst and Royal Naval Intelligence, and he wore a Rolex (an Explorer).
And Bond – Fleming’s idealisation of himself (with a touch of Cary Grant thrown in) – wore one too, first in the hugely successful books, later in the world’s most successful cinematic franchise.
Bond stayed pretty faithful to Rolex, certainly more faithful than he ever was to any woman. But initially Rolex wasn’t too keen to be seen in 007’s company. When asked to supply one for the first Bond film, Dr No, Rolex, perhaps prompted by the film’s title, responded in the negative.
And so Sean Connery opened the franchise in a dinner suit (the term ‘tuxedo’ being far too American) by Anthony Price, a shirt by Lanvin, and a watch lent to him by producer Cubby Broccoli – another Rolex man.
The watch itself was a Submariner, renowned for its toughness, though the exact model of Submariner remains a subject of heated debate among aficionados – was it a 5510 or 6200? Or more likely a 6538 or 6538A?
Throughout these early years – of From Russia with Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball – Bond wore Rolex, and that was that. And when 1967’s Casino Royale came around, a mess of a parody with too many writers, too many directors and far too many people playing James Bond (David Niven, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and, big joke, Ursula Andress, to name but a few), it was considered only natural that the British secret agent would wear Rolex, a GMT in the case of Peter Sellers.
In fact, Rolex started to become one of the stable features of the series. Bond girls with names like Pussy Galore, Honey Rider and Plenty O’Toole came and went, but Bond’s Rolex remained as constant as M’s testiness, Q’s ‘now pay attention, 007’ and that wistful look in Miss Moneypenny’s eye whenever Bond strode into the office.
Seiko had revolutionised the watch world with its first quartz watch in 1969. It cost about the same as a family car and was, clearly, never going to catch on
These Submariners were, for a secret agent, fairly meat-and-potatoes affairs. No laser beams, no mini-transmitters. If you were looking for a gadgety watch, there was one in From Russia with Love. But that wasn’t being worn by Bond, but by Rosa Klebb’s compadre, Red Grant (Robert Shaw). It dispensed piano wire. Handy if you fancied garrotting someone. Which Mr Grant frequently did.
And this classic style persisted when Sean Connery handed over briefly to George Lazenby for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, before returning in Diamonds Are Forever, after which he hung up his wig for good and the world welcomed Roger Moore, a man whose name is as improbable as any Bond girl’s.
Moore’s 007, too, was a Rolex man. But the Submariner he wore in Live and Let Die, a 5513, came with an electromagnet, a rotating sawblade bezel and a hyper-intensified magnetic field generator, capable of stopping bullets on the streets of voodoo-crazy New Orleans, but also useful for unzipping the dress of Madeline Smith (credited, chivalrously, as ‘Beautiful Girl’).
This very ‘Sawtooth’ Submariner recently sold at auction for $198,000 (£127,000).
Then things went ominously quiet on the watch front for The Man with the Golden Gun. Moore’s Bond wore a Rolex, as per, a 5513, again, nothing unusual. And the watch did precious little apart from look good. Perhaps it was sulking. Because in Bond’s next outing, The Spy Who Loved Me, he wears not just a Rolex (a GMT) but also a Seiko Quartz (0674 LC).
Seiko had revolutionised the watch world with their first quartz watch in 1969. It cost about the same as a family car and was one of those things that, clearly, was never going to catch on. By 1973 the quartz revolution was sweeping through traditional watchmaking companies, and sending many of them to the wall. Bond, by wearing one, was showing he was a man who knew how to move with the times, though his 0674 LC came with a non-standard-issue teleprinter tape (‘007 TO REPORT HQ. IMMEDIATE. M’).
And by the next Moore film, Moonraker, the changeover was complete. Bond was now a Seiko man and his cunning digital models got increasingly complex in each film – an exploding Seiko, a Seiko with a universal radio direction finder, a TV Seiko. Compared to a low-end iPhone, none of this sounds like much to get excited about. But it was the 1970s and Steve Jobs was still in the process of persuading his parents to let him start a small computer business in their garage.
Bond was now a Seiko man and his cunning digital models got increasingly complex in each film – an exploding Seiko, a Seiko with a universal radio direction finder, a TV Seiko
Back in the world of suave superspies, the franchise was in trouble. Roger Moore’s last outing as 007, A View to a Kill, did badly at the box office. And so Timothy Dalton was brought in, the equivalent of the reboot button on the Bond operating system. And in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, his only two films, he wore the traditional Rolex (a Submariner 16800).
It was a great idea – going back to basics – but it didn’t work. So out went Dalton, out went Rolex (again), and in came Pierce Brosnan and Omega. ‘Sean Connery wore a Rolex, but we thought they’d become a bit ordinary,’ is how Lindy Hemming, costume designer on the first three Brosnan Bonds put it, explaining the shift to Omega.
Brosnan’s 007 wears an Omega Seamaster – a quartz 2541.80 model that comes with laser cutter and remote detonator, simple, stylish gadgets for a leaner, more tailored Bond. That fabulous vault out of the window that 007 does in The World Is Not Enough, his death on the pavement below prevented by the 50 metres of microfilament contained in his Seamaster – now that’s what we’re talking about.
Which brings us up to date with Mr Craig, whose Bond also wears an Omega Seamaster. And his does… very, very little. Just as in the Sean Connery era, the watch is there to look good, not cook the dinner. In the upcoming Spectre it’s a Seamaster Aqua Terra, the latest version of the range of good-looking masculine watches that can trace their origins back to 1948.
But let’s get one thing straight – Daniel Craig wears an Omega in the Bond movies because he’s paid to, Omega taking their place alongside Sony, Bollinger, Aston Martin, Tom Ford and, er, Heineken, in the most heavily product-placemented movie franchise of all time. Nothing wrong with that. And nothing wrong with an Omega – President Kennedy and Mao Zedong both wore one; Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong wore them going to the Moon. But off-screen, in real life, Craig prefers to wear… a Rolex, often a Submariner 6538, aka the Sean Connery. The circle is complete.
Words: Staff
