In spy films such as Bond, Kingsman and Tenet, the real code you have to crack is a sartorial one
There is a telling moment in Tenet when John David
Washington meets Sir Michael Caine for lunch at his posh
London club. “Your Brooks Brothers suit won’t cut it in these circles,” Caine informs him dismissively, in a riff on the time-honoured “let me recommend you my tailor” routine. It’s the closest the movie gets to acknowledging that Washington’s character is a black man negotiating an overwhelmingly white world of power, wealth and social barriers. But it is also an admission that Tenet itself dearly wants to be considered in “those circles”.
Despite the men’s suit being a symbol of establishment conformity in real life, it still triggers associations of masculine status and dashingness on screen. Wear a good suit and you’re channelling Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery, even Caine himself.
American action heroes such as Tom Cruise prefer more practical combat gear these days, but for a certain strain of
British cinema especially, the tailoring is as crucial as the spycraft, from Guy Ritchie’s The Man from UNCLE to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (John le Carré noted a certain dandyism in British spies of the era). Doubling down on the suits in Inception, Tenet’s superior sartorial game puts Christopher Nolan firmly in the club.