Pierce Brosnan really loves a dress watch and is fed up of Bond

Luke Benedictus

Getting frustrated wondering if you’ll ever get to see the endlessly delayed new James Bond film, No Time To Die? Well, count yourself lucky that you’re not Pierce Brosnan. The actor who stepped into 007’s shoes to play Bond from 1995 to 2002, admitted last week that he’s fed up of getting quizzed as to who should replace Daniel Craig. “Sometimes it becomes wearisome,” he told People magazine this week.

Graciously, Brosnan still shared his thoughts all the same. “Idris Elba comes to mind,” he said. “Idris is such a powerful presence … He would be magnificent. There’s Tom Hardy out there as well. Tom can really chew the furniture up, just be a ball boy – both men can.”

No, we’ve no idea what those furniture / ball boy references mean either. But what we do know is that while Brosnan may not have escaped the shadow of Britain’s favourite secret agent, he’s certainly embraced the horological freedom of moving on from the role. As Bond, Brosnan was naturally a committed Omega man, embracing the rugged functionality of the Omega Seamaster Professional 300m. But the actor always showed a broad-minded approach when it comes to his wristwear, flaunting a watch collection almost as glorious as his indomitable head of hair

Brosnan’s big break came in the 1980s when he played the dashing Remington Steele. The character posed as a private investigator, but certainly doesn’t come from the school of crumpled raincoat-wearing gumshoes. Invariably suited and booted, Steele regularly sported a Cartier Panthère on a gold bracelet, sometimes mixing things up with a black dial Rolex Cellini.

 

Brosnan also donned Cartier in his next role as a business tycoon in the TV mini series Noble House. This time he donned the Pasha De Cartier, the polarising design that was massively popular in the 1980s.

Then came Brosnan’s seven-year Bond stint. But halfway through he did a spot of moonlighting to reprise the Steve McQueen role in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. In that film, he wore a Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Duo, but the watch proved to be something of a keeper. The shot below is of Brosnan attending the 2012 premiere of Love Is All You Need, showing the actor retained a soft spot for the square-jawed JLC classic. Around the same time, he was also seen wearing the Reverso Squadra Hometime in 18-karat pink gold

In 2015, on the set of the movie Survivor, Brosonan met Peter Speake-Marin, the founder of the brand Speake-Marin and, more recently, The Naked Watchmaker, a brilliant website that desmystifies the technical wizardry of watchmaking. Brosnan quickly became enamored by Speake-Marin’s complex timepieces and promptly wound up as a brand ambassador.

Fortunately for watch spotters it doesn’t seem to have be an exclusive relationship. At the 2020 Golden Globe Ambassadors, Brosnan turned up with a rather special timepiece from Girard-Perregaux – the Vintage 1945 Réserve de Marche in yellow gold.

More recently, Brosnan has been seen out and about wearing a Blancpain Villeret, another classic dress watch that’s made to peek out from behind the cuff of a tuxedo.

Brosnan may not be able to reveal the identity of the next Bond, but what’s not doubt is the man’s enduring love of a very fine watch.