The consumer bond

This chapter maintains the focus on the 1960s, framing a discussion about similarities between the lifestyle habits and style of Playboy magazine and James Bond within the essential context of male consumerism and the rise of consumer culture, in that they both function effectively as consumer guides. The chapter sets out to identify and discuss some illustrative examples of this connection between Bond and Playboy in the decade and a half after they were created, especially in terms of consumer preferences, style and taste. There are obvious but important similarities in the ways that Playboy and the Bond novels and Sean Connery-era films operate as consumerist fantasies, identified with exclusive or expensive brand-named products, gadgetry, travel, fashion, food and drink, and defined by an attention to detail, as this chapter illustrates.