BIG NEWS regarding Casino Royale Shoes

The Bond Experience

After many emails and tracking down the right people I received this email today:

Dear Mr Zaritsky,

Thank you for your query on the John Lobb website.

The model worn by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale is "Luffield". This model is in our Autumn/Winter 2006 collection.

Kind Regards,
Leanne

Leanne Pullin
Assistant to Product Manager
J.L. & Company Ltd (John Lobb)
Westminster Works
Oliver Street
Northampton
NN2 7JL

Tel. +44 (0) 1604 715011
Fax. +44 (0) 1604 712762
Email. a.dargie@johnlobb.co.uk

The Bond Experience

Save your pennies, gents...look at the tag...

Dear Mr. Zaritsky,

The Luffield style is available in the US from our Madison Avenue
Boutique and also from our stores in London and Paris.

Please refer to the website for the addresses etc. You can also see
the style on the website under United States, Ready to Wear, Derby,
Prestige, Luffield (top right image). This style is priced at $1,440.

Please let us know if you have any further questions,

With kind regards,

Vicky Shortland

PoorMansJB

The Mantis wrote:

Save your pennies, gents...look at the tag...

I've just got to ask: Why was this initially so interesting to you?

I recall a friend going to great lengths to get the same Church's shoes worn in TND ... the stories of the various distributors he spoke to, stores he called, rude clerks he endured, etc. I never really heard anything more after he finally got the shoes, though.

I know Bond's wardrobe is especially intriuging to you, Mantis, as well as to some others, but I've never quite been able to fathom this. To me, if they were so vitally important, it wouldn't matter if the shoes were $1,440 or $144,000 ... I genuinely don't understand why price would suddenly quash the query.

But then, my perspective on this is that I prefer to wear clothes, not let clothes wear me. So when I see posts about Craig's CR swimwear I think, "eh ... what's the point if they don't fit the person or their lifestyle?" I find men wearing things all the time (cologne in particular) that don't work on me so I move on; I can't imagne buying some item regardless just because it's the same as what Connery or Moore had .... or Pitt or Pacino, for that matter. Yet, if it was something I was vowed to own--that perfect ... whatever--price isn't going to stop me.

I don't mean for this to read as some sort of personal "attack;" I'm genuinely interested in why this particular aspect of Bond is so close to your heart just as I'm interested in why any collector focuses on any one branch of collecting or collectible.

The Bond Experience

Don't view it as an attack but really strange perspective from you...I have always been intrigued with Bond's props and wardrobe and for that reason this was a collector's item to me....when the piece has "fit" my lifestyle I have worn these pieces as well. Believe me, this isn't as unusual as you make it out to be....some people collect match books, some people collect Pez.

The Bond Experience

Oh, and I never quibbled about the price....sorry you read my post like that. Just that for some I realize this expenditure is hefty for shoes....

Donald Grant

I have to admit to somtimes wanting to buy or wear the items Bond does. I don't think Mantis is alone there. For me, however, the affliction has to do more with what Connery wore or used more than any other Bond. Lazenby would have to be a close second. I do happen to like the Craig swimsuit, but if the movie is not all it's cracked up to be, I'll probably like it less. As for John Lobb, I like the shoes because Connery wore them, not Craig. But if I bought a Connery style shoe it would probably be from Indy Magnoli. Magnoli offers a bespoke shoe at a much more reasonable price point. A bespoke shoe from Lobb is probably in the $3,000.00 price range while a bespoke shoe from Magnoli is about $300.00.

DG

PoorMansJB

Believe me, this isn't as unusual as you make it out to be....some people collect match books, some people collect Pez.

I don't think it's unusual--as I like to say, one man's poison is another man's Fiesta Ware--it's just that some how, well, shoes are ... shoes. With match books, Pez ... there's advertsing, graphics, a sense of time and place. Shoes are ... uh, shoes; as a rule, there's nothing inherently identifiable about them (well, men's dress shoes of the past 100 years, anyway).

Now, I have some Hush Puppies from the '60s with the 007 logo lining and the Connery artwork box which for me tell a great story about Bond's place in pop culture, etc. But the current trend says to me alot more about product placement doing it's job (let's face it, you're buying the stuff) than anything legitimately to do with 007. That is, I think the shoes and the swimwear and the sunglasses have very little to do with the Bond lifestyle or the Bond phenomenon's current place in society and all to do with whatever sort of deal the wardrobe designer could strike with the PR firm representing the shoes or the swimwear or the sunglasses (which, yes, at some level still comments on Bond's place in pop culture but it's much more complex and a whole lot sadder than the one made by the Hush Puppies).

The Bond Experience

Eh, we will agree to disagree. I happen to think that these products do represent point in time artifacts of Bond....zip drive sticks, Persol glasses etc.

Good discussion though and I like the cut of your jib regardless...:)

PoorMansJB

The Mantis wrote:

Eh, we will agree to disagree. I happen to think that these products do represent point in time artifacts of Bond....zip drive sticks, Persol glasses etc.

I would agree they do represent a point in time: Bond films as a product of their investors, etc., Not something to be remembered fondly.

I know Churchs actually ran at least an in-store campaign touting their Bond connection. But for the most part, it seems we know about a good many of these placements either through detective work or because someone simply recognized them. I'm curious if part of the attraction is the discovery, the having something that few others know the "why" of?

The Bond Experience

Now you are on to something....the hunt is half the fun, to be sure.