The name’s Bond, James Bond

THE FIRST thing you see when you walk into the James Bond exhibition Designing 007 — 50 Years of Bond Style, in London, is a dead body, a naked, gold, female dead body, face down on a bed.

Women in 007 movies come to a sticky end, famous for their double-entendre names, their inability to resist Mr Bond, and their premature, violent deaths.

Bond women (or ‘girls’, as they are called) are expendable once their function — decorative and/or sexual — has been fulfilled. This is in contrast to the suave, indestructible Bond, who survives explosions, car smashes, plane crashes, sharks, machine guns, highly trained baddies, and cat-stroking villains set on world domination. But to get hung up on the casual misogyny of the franchise is to miss the point, right? Look at the gadgets, the gear, the girls! If you’re a Bond fan — and judging by the exhibition crowds on a weekday morning, many are — then Designing 007 is your ultimate Bondfest.