Bond jacket may fetch £50,000 as outfits are auctioned

Published on Tuesday 30 January 2007 01:28

IT COULD cost you £5,000 to dress like William Wallace - but nearly ten times that to wear James Bond's dinner jacket.

Iconic Scottish film outfits are up for offer in a huge sell-off by the Oscar-winning costume company Angels. Mel Gibson's full William Wallace outfit from Braveheart, the 1995 film that celebrated Scotland's first champion of independence, is expected to fetch between 4,000 and 5,000.

But bids for a dinner jacket worn by Sean Connery in the Bond film Thunderball are expected to reach up to 40,000 at Bonham's auctioneers in March. By contrast, Billy Connolly's Highland outfit from Mrs Brown, in 1997, could cost as little as 300, cheaper than a kilt.

Angels, founded in 1840, makes and hires outfits to the film, television and theatre industry. It is selling off iconic pieces from the 1.5 million costumes in its collection.

The move comes after the soaring value of star outfits drove up insurance costs and made hiring out impossible, said the Angels chairman, Tim Angel.

The Bond outfit seemed a "ridiculous value", he said. "It's because it's Sean Connery, it's because it was a dinner jacket and it's because it was a Bond. I can't explain it, I don't set the prices."

Connery fans have a full choice of his outfits. They include his costume from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a two-piece tweed suit and hat, estimated at between 1,000 and 1,500, while his army uniform from A Bridge Too Far, 1977 would command only half that.

Connery's kimono-type cape, hat and breeches from Highlander are also on offer, along with co-star Christopher Lambert's full Connor clan tartan outfit.