This year marks the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise, from 1962's Dr No to the upcoming Skyfall, with Designing 007 – 50 Years of Bond Style, an exhibition at London’s Barbican showcasing the inside story of the design and style of cinema’s most iconic spy. It runs until September 5 and then goes global.

ISBN met its two curators: Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming, whose credits include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Batman, and five Bond films, along with fashion historian and author Bronwyn Cosgrave, whose book Vogue On: Chanel, releases later this year. We compared notes on Bond’s style highlights and uncovered a few of 007’s less exalted sartorial moments.

Whose performance in a female lead do you find sexiest in any Bond film? And why?

Possibly Maud Adams as Miss Anders - the girlfriend of Francisco Scaramanga - in The Man With the Golden Gun. She does not say much in the film but displays a cold vulnerability that is quite compelling.

Has Bond lost some of its sexiness, or is it just that the world has become less interested in sex and more consumed by other things?

Bond is eternally sexy.

Where do you stand on Daniel Craig? Is he too macho, too coiled, or a fair reflection of where we're at now?

Daniel Craig conveys a hard-edged masculinity that is quite comparable to Connery’s. He’s is the first blond Bond and has lent the action edge which was necessary for Bond to resonate today.

What's your favourite line/exchange of dialogue in any Bond film?

Atop the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio midway through Moonraker Lois Chiles says to Roger Moore’s Bond: “I still don’t know if I trust you.” He says: “Yes, but that’s what makes it more exciting.”

Since working on this project and being steeped in some of its archives, is there any thought/point that has surprised you or grown on you out of nowhere, which you’d care to share?

Wow. Tough. I discovered that Asprey, the Royal Family’s former jeweller produced the Fabergé Egg that appeared in Octopussy and that for scouting for the film’s locations in India, Peter Lamont, its production designer, was held captive aboard a hijacked plane. After a passenger he was sitting next to inquired about his profession and he explained that he worked for James Bond, the passenger said: “We could use a few of those gadgets right now!”

LINDY HEMMING

What’s the quintessential James Bond style/fashion moment for you? And what’s the quintessential James Bond girl’s/woman’s style/fashion moment for you, and why?

I can start by giving you one continuous quintessential moment in Bond: Ursula Andress, in her bikini coming out of the sea in Dr No; Halle Berry coming out of the sea in Die Another Day and then Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. These things are all one continuous movement through Bond.
But the quintessential moment for a woman is Ursula Andress, coming out of the sea. It is something that I can watch and watch and watch. She’s so seemingly unaware of the camera. And it’s so simple,. Halle Berry was referencing Ursula Andres in her La Perla outfit in Die Another Day. Ursula Andress’s bikini was made overnight using her own bra. It’s true. I’m not sure if the director didn’t like the costume provided, but it was as close to naked as they could get perhaps. In the book by Fleming she’s described as coming out of the water naked. Obviously they couldn’t film that. So the solution involved costumier Tessa Welborn, working through the night with Ursula Andress. They contrived the white bikini top from a push-up bra. The bottoms existed already. The knife belt was made from an old army belt that had been whitened. Then an improvised dagger and sheath was made. It’s wonderful; one of the most iconic bikinis in history, made in such a way, and so fast.
Of course we made our own streamlined one for Halle Berry. That was La Perla. I designed it and they made it to our specifications. A company called Whitaker Malem made the belts. Then of course Daniel Craig’s the same sort of idea. His shorts were also La Perla. I looked at Sean Connery’s pale blue poplin beach shorts in Thunderball, I referenced them and the idea of the bikini and thought this is it. Not baggy surf shorts or any billowy stuff you understand.

It certainly hit the spot. That’s for sure.

Yes, even now, it’s constantly being referenced in the paper.

It’s certainly an image that divided opinion.

All things divide opinion. And Daniel Craig’s James Bond does divide the line between the kind of Bond people like. He’s very modern, isn’t he? Tough, mean … etc …

He’s less classical than previous Bonds. He’s less debonair. Does that make him harder to dress, do you think?

Well, I dressed him in Casino Royale and not since. I think it is slightly more difficult. The way they play him now he can’t look too smooth. They’ve used Tom Ford and Ford is very smooth as a designer. It’s very elegant. I think in a way that Daniel Craig is like Sean Connery updated to now. Sean Connery was lithe, animally, panther-like and Craig is too, it’s just that times change, so the look has changed.
Those slim, Italianate suits that Connery wore were just becoming hip in the 60’s, and now, we’ve gone through another period of dress and have come back to an even more mean, tight tailoring. Even though it’s not my favourite Bond look, it’s still seems very relevant. I understand why and I think it is of its period in exactly the way Connery’s Bond was. Now they are tailoring Daniel Craig to look very tight, very sprung. It’s not necessarily what I would do, but it’s what they’re doing.

Connery was so much more leisured in his coiled-ness.

But I think you can’t take Bond out of his context. The great success is that they’ve managed to reinvent the character as time has gone by, with a couple of hiccups of course. It’s really very clever. Perhaps the quintessential moment, to go back to your first point, is the moment Bond was first seen. When in Dr No, Sean Connery appears, all you see is his arm coming onto the casino table, with a silk cuff. It was exactly what Ian Fleming wore. It was made by Anthony Sinclair and it’s in our exhibit. He’s recreating that suit for us, and one from Goldfinger for us.
There’s also the moment when Bond is kidnapped by Honor Blackman, [Pussy Galore], in a jet plane, and he goes into the bathroom. In his suitcase he activates one of his devices and changes into one of the most beautiful three-piece suits. He emerges looking stunning. Another moment like that is when Pierce Brosnan [Goldeneye] is driving the tank through the streets of St Petersburg. He bashes into a statue, crashes through tanks, turns over cars, an epic chase. At the end he straightens his tie and gets out. There are hundreds of Bond moments like that. That’s what Bond’s made of.

He’s always living in the moment.

The story just serves to tie those moments together.

Roger Moore, a sartorial reputation. Did he influence 007’s look?

He comes from a fashion background, something along the lines of modelling. They controlled him. Roger Moore still went to his own tailor, Douglas Haywood. And Douglas has said, that far from being very fashionable, they actually toned down Moore’s Bond. But he does look rather 70’s fashionable. He’s the most on-fashion of all the Bonds. But then, look at the time. Savile Row was being taken over by young new tailors like Tommy Nutter, and so there was a strong movement to have flares and long-collared shirts. It would never have happened if I’d been the costume designer. But then, saying that, costume designers in those days did not have the degree of control that they have now. Roger was also a very persuasive guy. He had his own ideas about how the character would be played, certainly more humorous. So they let him go in a new direction. He’s the most charming man. I think that was his appeal.

Was Fleming on the set of Dr No exerting stylistic influence?

Fleming was on the set. And Terence Young [director]. He was in the guards as a tank commander. So you had a director who knew the world of Bond for real, and the man who’d written it knowing the world of Bond. It was Terence Young who took Connery to get his tailoring done by Anthony Sinclair. That’s why Bond went there in the first place.

What’s Bond’s worst fashion moment?

The funniest was his pale blue towelling jumpsuit in Goldfinger. Another is probably poor Pierce Brosnan arriving at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in a pair of pyjamas in Die Another Day. Another is Brosnan in the prison camp in North Korea dressed in rags. I think the towelling jumpsuit is one of the funniest things. I think he was in Miami. It was part of the Florida beach look at the time. Seeing Sean Connery wearing it is quite shocking I think.

Villains have got less exotic, less easy to dress, don’t you think?

But Bond isn’t a comic book. Those kinds of villains are more in comics than cinema nowadays. After the war, you were coming from a period where it was acceptable that Stalin, Hitler, Fu Manchu … people accepted that villains from other countries had been injured or disfigured in some way. You can’t do that today. Now it’s even hard to find the country that the villain should come from. That causes problems. Also, the world was more closed then. You could imagine some villains in that way. But now, everybody has travelled everywhere and no-one really believes it. So your villains end up having to be about different kinds of villains; so you have money villains, arms manufacturer-villains. You know, the villains need to have occupations now. It’s not enough just to take over the world. You have to have some jobs on the side.

The Bond girl, how has she evolved?

I think Bond women since Pierce Brosnan started are the most fabulous characters to costume. They had stories and you could develop what they looked like nicely; it was not just about getting into bed with Bond. They were there for the whole film, too. They were in a great deal of the action, reflecting the fact that you can’t have women who aren’t taking part in the contemporary world. Things started to change with Goldeneye I would say.