“And of course we had to have five of them,” she continues, “as Vesper goes through quite a lot of physical stuff in the dress. In the script, that dress was bought for her by Bond and given to her when she gives him the tuxedo, so the art department has included a Cavalli boutique in the hotel set to tie it all together. Her other Casino dress, the black gown, was made for us by Versace. I designed the dresses she wears in Italy -- at the sanatorium on Lake Como, and the red dress she wears when Bond follows her in Venice. We made sure that none of the extras wore any red, so that we could see her as Bond catches glimpses of her through the crowds in Venice. It’s a small homage to Don’t Look Now.”
Bond’s other conquest in the film is Solange, played by Italian actress Caterina Murino. Says Hemming, “We first see her in her bikini, a La Perla piece, in sea green, which reflects the sea in the Bahamas where she is riding along the shore. Caterina is dark and sultry and, in contrast to Vesper, she has a tough, sexy look. Her evening dress is from the collection of English designer Jenny Packham, who made it up in a peachy orange color for us. It has a laced back, which looks great against her naked skin as she makes love with Bond, still wearing the dress.”
Ivana Milicevic, who plays Le Chiffre’s girlfriend, Valenka, was outfitted almost entirely in fashions from Roberto Cavalli, according to Hemming. “In contrast to the other women, she’s blonde and her character is edgy — a villain’s girlfriend and possibly an assassin, with model looks and lots of confidence. She wears clothes which I describe as almost not clothes. She begins in a beautiful blue Versace swimsuit, underwater among the fish and the coral, and always wears clothes that are almost falling off her, in very vibrant colors, which emphasize her poise.”
Breaking from the tradition of flamboyant Bond baddies such as Dr. No and Blofeld, Martin Campbell decreed that the Bond villains in CASINO ROYALE should not look like obvious villains. “No men carrying cats or wearing riding breeches,” says Hemming. “Le Chiffre is a menacing man who lives in a twilight world. He’s not flashy, he’s secretive. He isn’t a man who is much interested in clothes, but what he wears is expensive and luxurious. His Brioni evening suit is velvet, to emphasize richness.”
The rest of the poker players are dressed to portray the idea that Casino Royale is a “new money” gambling palace, explains Hemming. “Brioni offered to make suits for the men around the Casino table for the big game. Infante, the African dictator, is wearing an African version of an evening suit for gambling, the Russian has a mink collar, and the Argentinian has a suit with real gold threads running through it. Even Verushka, who plays the German heiress, is dressed by Brioni, as they started a new women’swear company this year.”
Hemming says one of the biggest challenges for the wardrobe department was dressing hundreds of extras to look as though they are inhabiting a location far from where the shooting actually took place. For example, Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibition at the Miami Science Center was shot in a mausoleum in Prague in February. “The extras arrived in fur boots and big parkas. We had to strip them off and make them wear shorts, sandals and T-shirts to look like Miami tourists. They thought we were torturing them. Then we filmed a Madagascar shanty town in the Bahamas.
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