Mad Men--Mad Style

The Cast of Mad Men

Ok, I know some of you think all I do is watch TV (Dancing with the Stars! Project Runway! Ace of Cakes!) but I just this year got into "Mad Men" after seeing all it's Emmy nominations. I watched one episode and immediately hopped on iTunes to download the entire first season which I proceeded to watch on the treadmill for the next month. What a way to make the time fly by...

But one of the reasons I love it so much is the costuming, which is so completely authentic to 1960: bullet bras, cinched in waists, shirtdresses, plaid wool pleated skirts, Peter Pan collars, bright floral prints, girdles and stockings, dirndl skirts, and ballet flats. The costume designer for the show, Katherine Jane Bryant, builds only about 10% of the dresses. The rest are true-to-life '60s garments found in vintage stores and auctions.

And that's just the women. The men wear these slim-cut suits with skinny ties. Everyone wears a hat when leaving the office. It's amazing!

According to a Cox News Service article, the men's suits are now so popular Bloomingdale's has opened "Mad Men" boutiques in some of it's stores, featuring guys like Michael Kors and Peter Som, who are designing entire lines of the new slim suits for men.

The authenticity threads through the entire show, tho, not just the costumes. Betty orders tomato juice as an appetizer before dinner in a restaurant. Everyone smokes, all the time, even the doctors. She defrosts her tiny little refrigerator freezer by putting a bowl of boiling water in it. Her daughter runs around playing "Spaceman" with a dry-cleaning bag over her head, and Betty chastizes her for taking the bag off her clean clothes--no worries here about the kid suffocating! It's fascinating to watch, whether you lived through the '60s or not.

It's on AMC Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. Take a look:

Love those dirndl skirts
Joan, the secretary. She has boobs that could kill.
The delicious Don Draper. If this doesn't make you want to watch the show, nothing will.

Lindsey's Ruby Slippers

Whoo hoo, it's been a long dry spell around Yakima waiting for some style to appear. But finally--eureka! Here came Lindsey in these fabulous shoes. It's hard to see in the pic but they're actually 3-toned: dark brown, then beige uppers, but a thin turquoise line separating the two. Add a chunky wooden heel, the T-strap...so lovable! She got them at a place in Spokane called Ruby Slippers, how clever is that?

Actually Lindsey was pretty much rockin the whole thing a few days ago at Allied Arts with some chic tweedy wide-leg pants, the chocolate turtleneck and the best ever empire-wasted, 3/4 length hoody. She's a newlywed (I'm talkin' three weeks). She dresses well. She's in the blog. Life is good.

Auf Wiedersehen Blayne

Another Wednesday, another Project Runway. I guess we all knew Blayne's time was running out & last week he got the big Auf Wiedersehen from Heidi. And an unfortunate reference to his model "pooping fabric" from Michael Kors.

Hmmmm, ok, I have to agree the Libra-inspired number he designed for his last challenge was truly hideous, completely unwearable, and made no sense whatsoever. He probably deserved to go.

But you have to hand it to the guy: he's really young, he's from Yakima for god's sake, and the fact that he got on a national TV show in the first place is pretty amazing. He had to have a certain amount of talent just to be able to complete the challenges, especially within the time constraints these designers are always given. And he actually lasted a few weeks: he was entertaining, had a cute little dimple, was perpetually tan, and I think he more than charmed Tim Gunn with his wierd little sayings. (Do you think Tim had a crush on him? I wonder...)So you have to wish him well, hope he gets it together, gets a nice break from someone somewhere, and gets to quit pouring lattes in Seattle and get on with his career.

As for tonight: first of all, what was the wierd thing Jerrell was wearing on his head? He looked like an Adam who escaped from Eden, turned gay, and put all his fig leaves in the wrong place.

The outfit he designed was very cool tho, & he deserved a win. Maybe the fig leaf hat was good luck.

But why did they like Kenley's little floral Easter dress with the belt in the wrong place and the dorky brown jacket/vest/whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be? That was just plain wrong.

And poor Joe. Loved him, but he deserved to go for that idiotic '80's biz suit. What was he thinking? Get in the 00's, Joe. Yikes.

Job Opening

Job Opening, Needed Immediately if Not Last Week:

Personal stylist desperately needed for 40-something female governor of very large, very icy Western state, a mother of 5, soon-to-be grandmother, huntress, business owner, activist.

Needs help with updating her beauty-queen-runner-up style that includes tiny, squarish glasses, superannuated, gravity-defying beehive hairdo, and nondescript Kohl's white shirts that probably remind old wrinkled Republican men of the librarian in the porn movie who 90 seconds into the film has pulled out the bobby pins, thrown off the tortoise-shell rims, and ripped open the shirt to reveal the Agent Provocateur black lace demi-cup.

Also needs assistance with her anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-gun control, anti-evolution, narrower-than-a-Wasilla-dirt-road political views, but that's gonna take a lot more than a fashion stylist. And that's not the purpose of this column. So I'll just keep that opinion to myself.

Hollarin Atcha Boy, 2.0

Ok, so after asking everyone I knew if they knew anything about Blayne (no one did), last night it gets dropped in my lap from our friend Brandon at the Warehouse Theater that Blayne is his BROTHER!!! (Well, half-brother I guess). Omg! What a bombshell! And he just mentioned it, like out of the blue, like we should have known that all along. So wierd.
Brandon says that the tanning obsession is fairly new (probably manufactured & magnified by the show's producers), that Blayne had a fashion show of his stuff last year in Seattle that was attended by hundreds of peeps--many of them NYC designers & bigwigs, and that his family honestly does not know whether he won or lost or how long he competed in Project Runway.
Of course they're very proud of him for being on national television, but Brandon himself said he can't imagine anyone he knows actually wearing his stuff. As for the shallow question, hmmmm......I never got around to that.
So there ya have it. I kind of think they're keeping Blayne on the show merely for entertainment purposes, just to see that strange look on Tim Gunn's face when he says, "girrrlicious!" And he is pretty entertaining. But if he's really supposed to be the next wunderkind a la' Christian Syrriano he's going to have to crank out a lot of good, original, innovative stuff in the next few weeks.
Blayne. You either love him, or you love to hate him. I guess if he were my brother I'd love him, too.