Kingsley Amis tackled the challenge of summarizing the Ian Fleming Bond Girl in Chapter 5 of The James Bond Dossier (1965), “Beautiful Firm Breasts.”

Physically, Bond-girl varies little from book to book. Her hair oscillates between blond (clear favorite) and black or dark brown with no intermediate shades. It is never coiffure. Her eyes are an almost invariable blue (only two exceptions). She is often suntanned. She has a wide mouth, a small nose, and high cheekbones. Her hands are strong and practical, with nails unpainted and filed short. Her physique is generally good, with some hints of assistance from tennis or swimming. She is tall, five foot seven or above, and not thin. Her most frequently mentioned feature is her fine, firm, faultless, splendid, etc., breasts.

Her wardrobe is “expensive,” Amis observed, “carefully designed to be outside fashion, to be timeless.”

The other thing about them is that they’re active clothes, associated with work, traveling, the open air — not primarily decorative, leisured, inactively feminine.