And cut! Hollywood’s obsession with suits as status symbols

In spy films such as Bond, Kingsman and Tenet, the real code you have to crack is a sartorial oneThere 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,

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