The Bond NATO Classification — For Your Lugs Only

Oh, the irony of using a Roger Moore Bond title pun in an article that won’t even mention him.

On the subject thereof, as you can see, my own stunt team contains no actual Bond watches, no Omega, no Rolex, not even a Seiko you can raise an arch eyebrow at. Not so much “ex-SAS types, with easy smiles and expensive watches” as “ex-NHS types, with easy laces and affordable watches” (Properly affordable, not ‘shall I take a whole family on holiday for a fortnight, or tell the time in a shiny manner’ affordable) but that in many ways, is absolutely the point isn’t it? We are more Type-B on here, rather than Type-A as it were.

And that is why a lot of us go and get that black and grey striped NATO strap for our diver of choice. Those specific colours are popular for a reason.

The ‘Bond’ NATO. 

Or is it? Short answer, yes, but also, it didn’t used to be, so let’s get into it a little shall we, because I have a nice little set of nicknames for those various colour options that I think help tell them apart. Firstly, here are the three colour options that are pretty much the ones we nab on Amazon or eBay, or wherever we get our sort-of-kind-of “mil spec” strap:

Left to right, that’s what some call the ‘Goldfinger’ stripes (on a Zulu in this case, but Sean got on alright with Michael Caine, and Harry Palmer probably had a drink with James Bond and bitched about their bosses) then the standard ‘Bond’ stripes, and finally our bang-up-to-date — fauxtina like we soaked it in coffee yesterday — ‘NTTD’ stripes. If there’s one group that loves an acronym more than watch people, it’s Bond People. And Trek people. And shady governments and criminal groups, but sometimes that’s a reach.

Or as I call them:

The Connery Colours.

Which should have been Oxford Blue rather than black, and he wore it two mil too small, and wasn’t even a NATO (they hadn’t been invented yet) but a single pass fabric-keeper job, with a thumbnail buckle. What we might call an RAF strap now. He was also wearing it in Dr.No, but for some reason we can see it better in Goldfinger. Not well enough — not for forty odd years and the advent of HD home TV pictures — to not accidentally think it was in fact Black and Grey two stripes, rather than the nine-stripes of Blue/Black, Red and Olive Green. It was on the simpler, tubed fabric, and not the ‘seatbelt’ premium fabric that we like today. This does make a difference in colour.

Omega will sell you nice thick material on all their ‘official’ straps, which brings us (along with the colour confusion) neatly onto our next choice.

The Spectre Colours:

Which basically come about, and make their way into canon, because a lot of people watched a lot of telly, and got the ‘wrong’ colours when homaging Connery. Here is one famous fellow wearing a Rolex on one in fact, which likely led to it making its way into the films:

Now, this perfectly logically means that really we should call it ‘Craig Colours’ and that would be perfectly fine, except Craig is a slightly dull name, and if it’s by actors tenure in the role, then we also have our next strap.

The Nomi Colours (Actually I prefer calling it the ‘NomiTTD‘ or ‘Nomi Time To Die’)

Because yes, that lovely Omega we all have our eye on is cheaper on this strap, and was actually worn by 007 in No Time To Die. Just not our usual agent with the ‘slick trigger finger for Her Majesty’. And it really suits, and is nicely tropical. It does raise some questions about Omega in the Bond universe, and whether all 007s just shop in the same store. And whether there’s a boutique in Jamaica, or they just both hit the duty-free at the airport.

Both the modern Bond straps look so much better on the ‘premium’ seatbelt material, it must be said.

But wait! 
Omega also did this:

Their Commander 007 watch. The colour scheme of which I have since seen referred to as the Captain America, and is frankly far too bright to be Bondian. Roger could have pulled it off I imagine, goes well with Union Jack parachutes. (Craig had one of those too. With Her Majesty.)

And before I leave you to shop for straps (which can be got very cheaply, all of mine are under twenty quid) I would also suggest another, if it’s to your tastes. I call it the ‘Standard Def Connery’ or sometimes just ‘MI6 Colours’ and it’s here against the ‘premium’ Connery. It’s a good middle ground of all the Bond straps. Mine is in standard tube weave, but I might seek out a ‘Premium’ version soon:

So, that’s all I have to say about Bond and his strap habits at this point, and hopefully it’s been helpful about why we all have a little bit of a deck chair wrapped round our wrist these days. I can’t well sign off with my favourite and most used Bond quote (“watch the birdie you bastard” if you’re curious) but it seems a good time to say:

”Be careful 007”