The overall effect is royal glamour,enhanced by touches of Saudi Arabian excess,with Middleton’s hair sculpted in an Italian jet set updo,making room for circular gold earrings by O’nitaa,designed to steal the spotlight from other guests. Gold princess rather thanGoldfinger. Shorthand translation:Meghan who?
Even with Prince William on her arm,Middleton’s glamour gambit made her the perfect Bond Girl to Daniel Craig’s suave spy,wearing a raspberry velvet,double breasted dinner jacket. This was obviously not an undercover mission with Craig riding the pink suiting wave recently surfed successfully byJake Gyllenhaal at the Tony Awards in Prada.
Wearing pink could be a nod to Bond’s ongoing reinvention from womanising relic to woke assassin,withFleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge having been brought on board as a writer to update the spy’s controversial image. Waller-Bridge’s image remained flawless on the red carpet wearing a sequinned jumpsuit with plunging neckline from Azzaro,made fit for the royal line up including Prince Charles,by an understated coat.
There was nothing understated about Lashana Lynch’s look-at-me red carpet moment in a voluminous canary yellow and black strapless gown. Lynch has crossed over from the Marvel Universe where she played Maria Rambeau inCaptain Marvel to become the first female 007,creating buzz with bold colour choice.
Following in the jet stream of Middelton’s cape was French actress Lea Seydoux,returning to the Bond franchise and publicity circuit in a 1930s-inspired Louis Vuitton gown with silver sequins and a cape of its own. On this occasion gold trumped silver and Seydoux’s Bond Girl status was somewhat overshadowed.
After her triumphant turnat The Met Gala,cinched in Oscar de la Renta,singer Billie Eilish dropped Marilyn Monroe from her moodboard and returned to a more relaxed,familiar tunic and trousers silhouette in black sequinned Gucci. Eilish recorded the film’s title song,following in the footsteps of Shirley Bassey,Duran Duran and more recently Sam Smith.