Amazon MGM's James Bond Takeover

Assuming control of the 007 film franchise, Amazon MGM has the power to deliver a triple whammy - reset the film series, regenerate the London fashion scene and become a style player.

Imagine one of James Bond’s badass female sidekicks flaunting something spectacular from Edeline Lee’s Fall 2025 collection, The Good Fight? Consider how interesting Eve Moneypenny might look if Erdem got the chance to mastermind her wardrobe? What if a member of Savile Row’s new guard - Daisy Knatchbull, Matthew Gonzalez or Thom Sweeney - suited up the big guy?

These thoughts came to my mind when, just as London Fashion Week got started last Thursday, it was announced that Amazon MGM Studios has assumed complete creative control of the James Bond film franchise, which is the longest running and the most successful of all time.

As newspaper columnists and TV commentators debated how the studio would monetize 007, I was thinking about all the multinational technology company could do to push forward the look of Bond films and, all the while, revive the London fashion scene.

The fight actors Edeline Lee hired to spar - and test the limits of her autumn/winter 2025 finery which she displayed on Saturday at The Dorchester (above) - stimulated my imagination because her fierce fabulous combat warriors reminded me of Bambi (Lola Larson) and Thumper (Trina Parks) tackling Sean Connery’s Bond in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. (See below!)

Wardrobes crafted for Bond films have always been guided by a particular creative process in which the finest costume designers worked with masterly fashion designers, as well as bespoke tailors, to ensure that up on the big screen the action adventures appeared “one step ahead of contemporary.” Or, classier than the competition.

Sir Ken Adam, the original and greatest ever Bond production designer, established this ethos. During his heyday (Dr. No to Moonraker, with some exceptions), London’s finest makers and creators got a boost off the back of 007 and his female sidekicks.

For 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me, Ronald Paterson - a Scottish, Mayfair-based designer - served as the film’s fashion consultant. He enlisted Franka de Stael von Holstein to beautify Barbara Bach’s Major Anya Amasova for the stupendous sequence in which she and Roger Moore’s 007 decamp from Cairo’s (fictional) Mojaba nightclub to the Karnak Temple, near Luxor. The secret agents are in hot pursuit of the same thing - microfilm. A dust up with Richard Kiel’s Jaws ensues.

Franka Couture - as von Holstein’s label was known - counted Anne, Princess Royal and Ava Gardner as clients. Paterson - who WWD considered a “couturier” - made the chic jumpsuit Bach wore during the scene when Atlantis exploded. Another one of Paterson’s masterstrokes was enlisting Pierre Cardin to dream up the two-piece burgundy getup sported by the subterranean lair’s villainous owner, Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens). Veteran wardrobe supervisor, Rosemary Burrows was on hand to make sure it all looked good. Katharina Kubrick - Stanley Kubrick’s daughter - was working in Ken Adam’s art department on Spy. So she was tasked with designing Jaws’ steel teeth. She went on to become a jewelry designer.

When Cubby Broccoli controlled the Bond franchise, the secret agent’s wardrobe needs fueled the coffers of the finest tailors working in and around Savile Row. Anthony Sinclair of Conduit Street got the gig fitting Sean Connery’s 007 suits because he was Ian Fleming’s tailor. Edward Sexton and Tommy Nutter did the honors for Moore because they dressed him off screen and the producers always wanted Bond to be comfortable, given all of the action.

Bond fashion got more international when Barbarella’s magnificent costume designer Jacques Fonteray enlisted Hubert de Givenchy to dress Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead for 1979’s Moonraker. Six years later, Azzedine Alaïa had creative freedom to dream up Grace Jones’s wardrobe as May Day in A View To A Kill.

Lindy Hemming pushed James Bond’s style beyond British borders by working with Brioni to design Pierce Brosnan’s 007 suits. Hemming - the longest serving Bond costumer who won an Oscar for Mike Leigh’s Topsy Turvy - worked with many London designers to dress the female characters. Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp flaunted Jimmy Choo shoes in GoldenEye. In 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, Sophie Marceau (below) hit the slopes as Elektra King in a ski togs by Sam de Teran, an activewear designer who had a boutique on Fulham Road. Four years later, Princess Kate’s go-to-dressmaker Jenny Packham gowned Rosamund Pike’s Miranda Frost in Die Another Day.

Lindy and I co-curated the largest ever James Bond museum exhibition, Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style. It opened at London’s Barbican Centre in July 2012 and toured the world for five years.

Long before then, EON Productions had launched a lucrative sideline whereby luxury brands of all manner - Aston Martin, BMW, Ericsson, M.A.C, Omega, to name some- paid to be part of the show. Bond films became product launches for cars and cellphones. It worked well because everything Bond touches turns to gold. Yet in the process the je ne sais quoi chic defining the women’s costumes got lost amid the noise.

I’d love to see Thom Browne dream up the attire for a female 007. But the next Bond film could be truly powerful if Amazon worked with London designers on this climactic reset and threw a genius like Sandy Powell into the mix.

Imagine what Erdem (center) could do with Moneypenny?

The triple whammy of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the demise of Matches Fashion has left the British fashion industry in tatters. For years Amazon.com has struggled to lure luxury customers. Last week Saks Fifth Avenue announced that it will open an online luxury shop with the monolith. But the name that truly has the power to put paid to the retail giant’s patchy fashion reputation and, all the while, give some London designers a lift, is Bond. James Bond.

Farewell, London! Later this week, I’ll report from Los Angeles.