FT: The Fashion of TINKER,TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

In the Financial Times article "Cracking The Dress Code," mystery writer Tom Rob Smith looks at Tomas Alfredson's adaptation TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY from a fashion angle. Smit isn't interested in the flashy duds of a James Bond thriller, but rather in the complex messaging coded in one's clothes, especially if you're working undercover. As Smith says of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY: The costumes in this latest version of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY operate as a series of coded signals, and there are deliberate and revealing deviations from the norms of spy chic within the movie. Gary Oldman, playing the consummate spy George Smiley, perfectly embodies spy chic. Even his reversible mackintosh is based on the one favoured by Graham Greene, one of the literary masters of the spy world, who took spy chic tropical in Our Man In Havana, the single-breasted dark colours replaced with cream, wool exchanged for linen. These clothes are not about looking good. They are about character. If you are in any doubt that Smiley is our hero look at the cut of his suit, his dull socks cleverly contrasted with another character's brightly-coloured socks later on in the movie.