Bond Girls: Body, Fashion and Gender

Since Ursula Andress’s white-bikini debut in Dr No, ‘Bond Girls’ have been simultaneously celebrated as fashion icons and dismissed as ‘eye-candy’. But the visual glamour of the women of James Bond reveals more than the sexual objectification of female beauty. Through the original joint perspectives of body and fashion, this exciting study throws a new, subversive light on Bond Girls. Emerging from masculine anxieties about the rise of female emancipation after the Second World War, Bond Girls embody an unconventional and dynamic femininity challenging the patriarchal and imperial ideologies associated with Bond. Such tensions appear through sartorial practices as diverse as ‘exoticism’, ‘power dressing’ and fetish wear. Attention to costume, film and gender theory makes Bond Girls: Body, Gender and Fashion essential reading for students and scholars of fashion, media and cultural studies, and for anyone with an interest in Bond.

‘It’s hard to imagine a more thorough examination of the problematic heart of the James Bond franchise. Monica Germanà’s “Bond Girls” is endlessly fascinating and informative’.

(Anthony Horowitz, author of Trigger Mortis and Forever and A Day)

‘Through the prisms of body and fashion, Monica Germanà provides a fascinating analysis of women in James Bond. With critical rigour she illustrates the complexity and strength behind the Bond Girl stereotype. Both persuasive and provocative, it makes for a compelling read.’

(Neal Purvis, co-writer of seven Bond films, from The World is not Enough to Bond 25)

‘Meticulously researched, rich in sartorial detail and packed with fresh insight, Bond Girls is a real treat of a book. Monica Germanà offers a thrilling defence not only of the Bond Girls’ feminist credentials, but also of the importance of fashion to literary and filmic analysis.’

(Professor Catherine Spooner, Lancaster University)

‘Monica Germanà has written a stylish book on a topic that never fails to elicit attention from fans and critics alike. A great resource – very clever and insightful.’

(Professor Klaus Dodds, Royal Holloway, University of London, and co-author of Geographies, Genders and Geopolitics of James Bond)