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JAMES BOND has it all — cars, girls and gadgets. And 007 never fails to complement his razor-sharp dressing with a handsome WATCH, too.
by Terence Lim
As an
icon, James Bond is a hard act to follow. Not only does the modern
day Braveheart thwart evil missions with an insouciant elan, the
impossibly suave 007 always has his endless fill of exotic beauties. But
in order that he has time for everyone from villains to vixens, that his
schedule always runs on
time like the
well-oiled Big Ben, Mr Bond needs a trusted timepiece. Like the various
quality marques — Church’s shoes, Aston Martin or Bentley cars — that
Sir
Ian Fleming used to flesh out the MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service
in the novels) spy, the watch Bond wears has to reflect his taste as
well as his pedigree.
Out of the 14 novels authored, it’s an accessory that is accorded as
much importance as the guns, the girls and the other gadgets its British
author embellished him with. In Chapter 16 of
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Fleming wrote that Bond
prepared to use his
Rolex as a
knuckle-duster. The manuscript for
Live and Let Die archived in the Indiana University also
mentioned “Rolex” on page 111. And in the short story, The Hildebrand
Rarity, “Bond watched the gleaming minute-hand slowly creep round
the dial”. Certainly a man with an acute sense of time.
When Hollywood started filming the first-ever Bond flick,
Dr
No, in 1962, Bond’s passion for watches followed into the reel
world: Actor Sean Connery sported a Rolex Submariner. Over the next 21
Bond films that spanned a total of 46 years, the
role of watches also evolved with the franchise. (In earlier films,
the timepieces doubled up as gadgets that assisted him on his missions:
Geiger counter, remote explosive detonator, and even a
Fabergé egg tracking device. It’s only in recent productions that we
see Bond use watches as how they should be employed: Time-telling
devices.)
Similarly, Rolex — the watch marque that the reel Bond wore originally —
has since made way for other brands as the beloved British secret agent
flirted with watch brands like he would his women. (Nevertheless, his
allegiance to his watch has a better track record: Bond always sleeps
naked with his watch on, regardless of the rotating roster of women.)
