007 A License to Brand

As James Bond returns in a new screen adventure this year, nobody does it better when it comes to endorsing a luxury item.

James Bond might be fickle with the ladies, but he is pretty loyal to his brands. The quintessential English gentleman spy and lone-wolf alpha male is a discriminating consumer with a penchant for luxury goods. No wonder the world's leading purveyors of luxury have capitalized on his inimitable and iconic role as a brand ambassador.

That Bond drives an Aston Martin, wears an Omega Seamaster wristwatch, likes Bollinger Champagne, beluga caviar and his Martinis shaken, not stirred—as long as they are Smirnoff—is proverbial. And Bond aficionados are always ready to pounce on a new trend, wondering who made Daniel Craig's tuxedo in Casino Royale—Brioni—and who is going to be making his suits for his next outing as 007 in Quantum of Solace. Early scoops pointed to London's Alfred Dunhill but American designer Tom Ford seems poised to measure Craig's inner thigh.

Bond mania has reached fever pitch this year. To celebrate the centenary of Bond creator Ian Fleming's birth in May, British novelist Sebastian Faulks was commissioned to continue the Bond saga. His novel Devil May Care, published by Penguin in Europe and Doubleday in the US, features the curvaceous profile of model Tuuli Shipster on the cover, a detail that Fleming would have approved. On the website of Ian Fleming Publications, Faulks banters: “In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkeling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in the late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women. In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkeling.”