Twenty years on from Casino Royale, Sunspel’s polo helped redefine Bond; proving that true style lies not in spectacle, but in simplicity, precision, and ease.
Daniel Craig redefined Bond in Casino Royale, where simplicity, strength, and a Sunspel shirt said everything.
Credit: Entertainment Pictures
There are garments that follow fashion, and those that quietly shape it.
In 2006, as Daniel Craig emerged from the surf in Casino Royale, a new kind of Bond took form — leaner, harder, and more physical. The armour of formality had been stripped away. What remained was something simpler.
At the centre of it all was a shirt.
Sunspel had been here before.
Sunspel founder Thomas Hill (c.1870)
Credit: Sunspel
The business was founded by textile innovator Thomas Hill to craft luxurious garments from cashmere, silk, merino wool, and Sea Island cotton. Passed down through the Hill family, it survived two world wars and the Great Depression, maintaining the values of quality, innovation, and craftsmanship at its core.
The Thomas A. Hill Ltd factory in Nottingham (c.1890)
Credit: Sunspel
In 1908, the business began to manufacture some of the world’s earliest luxury T-shirts — simple lightweight tops made from Sea Island cotton for export to the Far East. Sunspel has continued to perfect this staple wardrobe item for over 100 years — still made by hand in their English factory, crafted with the finest Californian Supima cotton, and widely regarded as the best in the world.
An early 20th century example of the classic Sunspel T-shirt
Credit: Sunspel
Within a decade of introducing its first Sea Island Cotton T-shirts, Sunspel invented a new material — Cellular Cotton. Traditional lace-making machines were used to create a lightweight cotton material with an open knit that allowed air to circulate around the body. It was codenamed Q14, and remains a unique fabric today.
Sunspel's Q14 Cellular Cotton invented in 1917.
Credit: Sunspel
Sunspel moved location to its current factory in Long Eaton, England, in 1937. It is the place where knowledge, skills, and expertise have been passed down through generations, and continues to produce all of the company's handmade Classic T-shirts.
The Long Eaton factory
Credit: Sunspel
In 1947, John Hill, the great-grandson of the founder, introduced the Boxer short to Britain after discovering the style in America. Sunspel turned this functional piece of underwear into a luxury undergarment, and In the mid 1980s, they were given a boost by the release of a memorable Levi's television commercial featuring an English model (Nick Kamen) stripping down to his Sunspel shorts in a 1950s-style public laundromat.
Click here to read a Brief History of Gentlemen's Briefs
Credit: Levi Strauss & Co.
Another American influence was the Loopback Sweatshirt. Whilst the original garments were produced in the United States, arguably the finest examples are now manufactured by Sunspel, and are designed for warmth and comfort - rather than for wicking moisture.
Click here to learn how to Keep Your Cool in a Loopback Sweatshirt
Credit: Sunspel
Then came the Riviera Polo.
Originally developed in the 1950s, it was designed for heat — for the languid, sunlit ease of the Côte d’Azur. Lightweight, breathable, precise. It embodied a certain kind of understatement: effortless, but never accidental.
Half a century later, it would find its defining role.
Working with costume designer Lindy Hemming, Sunspel helped reshape Bond for a new era. The Riviera Polo — cut close to the body, unstructured, and quietly confident — became a key part of that transformation. It was not costume. It was character.
The Sunspel Riviera Polo Shirt is described by the Financial Times as ‘the easiest way to look like Bond without wearing a tuxedo’.
Click here to view the Riviera Polo Shirt from Casino Royale (2006)
Credit: Collection Christophel
Alongside the polo came a reinterpretation of the classic T-shirt: a Riviera midweight, developed specifically for Daniel Craig’s Bond. In grey mélange, it returned to first principles — fabric, fit, function — stripped of anything unnecessary.
Click here to view the Grey Melange Riviera Midweight T-shirt
Credit: TCD/Prod.DB
To complete the set, a Riviera Midweight V-neck T-shirt in White was added to the collection, ensuing that James Bond, as ever, is perfectly dressed for any occasion.
Click here to view the White Riviera Midweight V-neck T-shirt
Credit: Collection Christophel
Bond has always been a reflection of his time.
In 2006, he returned to something elemental.
So did Sunspel.
For over 160 years, the company has refined the same idea: that the simplest garments, made properly, matter most. Not because they draw attention — but because they endure.
And sometimes, without trying, they change everything.
Click here to view all of the Sunspel clothing collections.