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Apparently we’re getting a Gen Z James Bond… but what will he even wear?
The rumour mill points to a new 007 that’ll be at least 25 years younger than his predecessor. That might signal a big shift in his tailoring
7 August 2025
Bond 26 is nearly upon us. A new director (Denis Villeneuve) and writer (Steven Knight) have been signed. The Amazon empire, with its overflowing war chest, has took the helm. And now, a new, allegedly very young, Bond may soon be coronated.
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Or at least that’s what the rumours are whispering. “Insiders say that the studio and producers are interested in casting a British actor under the age of 30,” reported Variety. The current list of front runners reportedly include Tom Holland (29), Harris Dickinson (29), Jacob Elordi (28), and Timothée Chalamet (29). The obvious question is, of course, which of these Hollywood heartbreakers will be given the 007 rose at the end of the ceremony? But, maybe, the more interesting question is: what is he going to wear?
After all, Bond has always been an older guy. Late thirties, forties, hell, Roger Moore was 57 the last time he picked up the martini. In these versions, the suit fitteth the man. The former wore a lot of heavy wools and tweeds, plenty of dinner suits, the smart three-piece thing. Pierce Brosnan was in overcoats and ’90s-style power suits. Daniel Craig’s era went for slim-fit Italian tailoring in greys and navies, which was of-the-time for the skinny fitted 2010s. (When Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd purred “There are dinner jackets and then there are dinner jackets” in Casino Royale, it was in reference to a very sexy, single-button Brioni tux.)
Now, nobody’s saying the new Bond will be some doe-eyed 18-year-old. But many of the rumoured contenders are technically on the cusp of Gen Z, or ‘zillennials’ if you so wish, because everyone and everything needs a little nickname. Nonetheless, there is a distinction in the way they dress. There’s also a distinction in the way they wear suits. A singular glance at runways or red carpets or your own social media will point to a looser and wilder approach to tailoring. If they’re not branching out with shapes (i.e. boxier, roomier, baggier) and accessories (tie-alternatives, brooches and even blinged-out necklaces reign), they’re doing it with pattern and colour (see: Timothée Chalamet wearing highlighter yellow to the Oscars).
So if a 28-year-old were to be cast as Britain’s greatest, most promiscuous superspy, what does that look like? Is he wearing the Bond uniform of classic tailoring? Or is he wearing a suit the way a stylish 28-year-old wears a suit in 2025? The boxed-out shape, odd colours, the flashy little details? Will his Savile Row guy have to factor in room for both his gun holster and his Lost Mary? Will he trade his shaken-not-stirred martini for an espresso martini BuzzBall? Wait. Does he even drink?
Pro tailors on Savile Row have thoughts; important, especially when so many of them come from a long line of Bond outfitters. Dominic Sebag-Montefiore, creative director of Edward Sexton, and Davide Taub and Eithen Sweet, from Gieves & Hawkes, believe that current fashion trends and Italian suits should both stay on the exploding train. It’s British tailoring – the good old fashioned version; clean, fitted, neat – that should lead the charge.
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Thinking about the suits of Bonds past, Sebag-Montefiore says they were not only “inherently masculine” but “very British” at the same time. “I think back to Sean Connery and Roger Moore with bespoke Cyril Castle and Dougie Hayward and these off Savile Row tailors who were making proper British suits with a bit of personality. They had a sense of formality, an old world elegance.”
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The modern Bonds? A little less. Pivoting from English tailoring to the Italian-style suits of Craig leant into “lost that British bespoke eccentricity,” he says. Which made him look less superspy and more “elevated security services.” (Sweet wonders out loud: “It was a bit cringe in places, wasn’t it?”)
Taub, head cutter at Gieves & Hawkes, thinks you can do both. Embracing traditional British bespoke and giving it a more modern twist for a younger guy aren’t mutually exclusive. “The one thing with bespoke, even when you go through the different decades, it’s always been about fit,” says Taub. “Even though the decades might have shown different silhouettes – be it the ’80s with wider shoulder pads, the ’70s with wider lapels – the funny thing tends to be that you need to transcend that kind of era or fashion to some degree, because garments are meant to have longevity.”
That doesn’t mean Bond has to be on his Connery or Moore shit, necessarily. Taub says you can blend the two to tick boxes in both columns. “You may have a little bit of a nod and a wink to whatever might be current. Right now, it tends to be the oversized, the generous fit and seeing what some of the fashion labels are doing,” he says. (“But the other side of it is, well, is that very practical if you’re an agent jumping from roof to roof, you know?”)
Classic with a twist gets a head nod from the Sexton camp, too. “Instead of going the Armani-inspired boxy thing that’s going on in fashion, look more towards British classicism on Savile Row and look at a fuller, roomier Savile Row cut,” he says. “Edward [Sexton] used to talk about the drape cut that they were doing at [tailoring house] Kilgour in the ’50s when he was there that was softer and off the shoulder and had more roll to the chest.”
In this vision, perhaps it’s a navy wool suit, with a puddly straight-leg trouser. Or maybe it’s classic black with a softly-draping chest. Dispel those fantasies of Bond in an Adidas Samba or a chore jacket; it’s just not going to happen.
Kitting out Bond in a flowing Saint Laurent two piece, or boxy Bottega, date the movie too much. It would also be impractical. Sure, sometimes 007 finds himself at fancy events with a blonde unironically named Pussy Galore, but he still has to blend in. He’s not only a master of rizz, but a master of disguises and facades. Anything other than a classic suit, done the way of the classic suit masters, just wouldn’t work.
“It would be a shame because it probably wouldn’t stand true to what the character is,” says Eithen Sweet, Gieves & Hawkes senior cutter. “I think taking a standard ‘runway’ view of, ‘Let’s have a red carpet look for him in every situation’, that might be a little bit crazy.” Sebag-Montefiore thinks the same. “You can’t lean too much into that fashion suit for that [Bond] world. It wouldn’t make you fit in.”
Anyway. We lied earlier. When asked about the feasibility of actually tailoring a jacket around a gun holster and a vape, Sebag-Montefiore posed two much more interesting questions: “Well… where do you want to carry the guns? And how much do you care about the line of your suit?”
Rosamond Press 
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