Spectre's Costume Designer on Outfitting a Bond Villain

For any fan of James Bond’s sartorial choices, Tom Ford’s association with Daniel Craig’s secret agent as his favorite choice for suiting is well known. But what about the reasoning behind the clothing choices of his arch enemies, for instance, Spectre‘s quietly megalomaniacal Ernst Stavro Blofeld? Jany Temime, the costume designer for both Skyfall and Spectre, spoke to Esquire about how her outfits bring out the worst in Bond villains, the whopping number of tailored suits it takes to shoot an action scene, and her reasoning for dressing 007 in the white tuxedo that everyone is talking about. Read an excerpt below and find the full-length interview here.

Bond has such a specific framework in terms of his style, is it challenging to keep things fresh because of that?

The character of James Bond is one of a very confident man. Very well prepared, sure of himself, very well groomed. When you take that on board, you can really design a little bit of whatever you want. Because as long you catch the essence of the character, then the rest is just taking into account the location and the story.

What was your process in designing Christoph Waltz’s costumes, obviously his character is very different from Javier Bardem’s in Skyfall?

Well, I didn’t want to again do a very colorful villain. Because Christoph Waltz is a very introverted man. And his character is also very introverted. I thought that he’s so devious and so bad that I’m going to make him extremely minimalist. Because his character is beyond horrific, so it doesn’t need much. Everything comes from the inside out. So I sort of refused more and more and more, because I thought that his personality would shine through, and that was enough. The bad he is playing is in his natural form.