I can't wait to see what she wears when she's pregnant! I adore her style and am trying to find a dress to wear for Halloween!

Why did you say a Bikini wouldn't be found in 1962?

The modern bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946. Réard was a car engineer by training, but by 1946 he was running his mother's lingerie boutique near Les Folies Bergères in Paris. Heim was working on a prototype for a new kind of beach costume. It comprised two pieces, the bottom large enough to cover its wearer's navel. In May 1946, he unveiled his invention and advertised it as the world's "smallest bathing suit". He sliced the top off the bottoms and advertised it as "smaller than the smallest swimsuit". The idea struck him when he saw women rolling up their beachwear to get a better tan.

Réard could not find a model who would dare to wear his design. He ended up hiring as his model Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris. That bikini, a string bikini with a g-string back made out of 30 square inches (194 cm²) of clothes with newspaper type printed across, was "officially" introduced on July 5 at a fashion event at Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris. The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received some 50,000 fan letters. Heim's design was the first to be worn on the beach, but the genre of clothing was given its name by Réard. Reard's business soared, and in advertisements he kept the bikini mystique alive by declaring that a two-piece suit wasn't a genuine bikini "unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring." French newspaper Le Figaro wrote, "People were craving the simple pleasures of the sea and the sun. For women, wearing a bikini signaled a kind of second liberation. There was really nothing sexual about this. It was instead a celebration of freedom and a return to the joys in life."
Pin-up photo of Esther Williams wearing a conservative swimwear in the October 5, 1945 issue of Yank, the Army Weekly

But bikini sales did not pick up around the world, and women stuck with more traditional two-piece swimsuits. Réard went back to designing orthodox knickers to sell in his mother’s shop. Actresses in movies like My Favorite Brunette (1947) and the model on a 1948 cover of Life magazine were shown in traditional two-piece swimwear, not the bikini. In 1950, Time interviewed American swimsuit mogul Fred Cole and reported that he had "little but scorn for France’s famed Bikinis," because, according to him they were designed for "diminutive Gallic women". "French girls have short legs," he explained to Time, "Swimsuits have to be hiked up at the sides to make their legs look longer." Modern Girl magazine wrote in 1957, "It is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing." Movie star Esther Williams commented, "A bikini is a thoughtless act." One writer described it as a "two piece bathing suit which reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name." According to Kevin Jones, a curator and fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, "Réard was ahead of his time by about 15 to 20 years. Only women in the vanguard, mostly upper-class European women embraced it, just like the upper-class European women who first cast off their corsets after World War I."

Brigitte Bardot, photographed wearing similar garments on the beaches of Cannes during the Film Festival (1953) and who wore a bikini in And God Created Woman (1956), helped popularize the bikini in Europe in the 1950s and created a market for the swimwear in the US.[ Photographs of Bardot in bikini on the beaches of Saint-Tropez in French Riviera, according to the The Guardian UK, turned Saint-Tropez into the bikini capital of the world.

Oh GOD, 60's maternity wear? Why am I reminded of Samantha Stevens, when she was pregnant with Tabitha's younger brother. Lord, those were awful clothes, blech! A big mumu, with a big ol' bow on the front!

Betty's gold dress was a perfect replica of the early Barbie dress that came with my doll in the early 60's. It was a gold brocade with a matching coat with mink cuffs and pale blue lining, all she needed was the mink head band. Betty really is the reincarnation of Barbie.

TK, Every time I see the picture of Betty used in the Episode 13 section of this blog, I think of Barbie. She looks just like the doll.

TK: Good catch! I think my Barbie had the same outfit, too!

I believe that Season 3 will start in early 1964, right after the Kennedy assasination. Matt Weiner has stated that he's not going to deal directly with the assasination, just the aftermath. I want to see Betty in miniskirts and a Vidal Sassoon haircut; she'll look gorgeous!

Joan definitely needs a fashion update. Her look is very dated. I'd like to see her wearing her hair longer and down. She's starting to look a little frumpy and older than she really is.

I disagree about Betty's suit not being sexy. For a certain kind of man, that outfit--which telegraphs 'high net worth'--is very sexy. perhaps not EROTIC, but sexy (provoking a sexual response) nonetheless.

But the Marimekko maternity shift for next season...dead on!

So true about Peggy. She is like a butterfly only half out of the cocoon at this point. Yes! Bring on the Mary Quant!

I thought Matt skipped over a couple of years per seeason? So, Betty would not be pregnant!

TK: Yes! I remember that Barbie outfit! That's exactly what Betty's outfit reminded me of, too! And yes, she has also reminded me of Barbie, too, for a long while...I had that Barbie outfit and B. doll with the ponytail as well as when Barbie got the "bubble cut" in the early 60s!

I loved Betty's suit, I thought it was stunning actually. Very, very pretty. Reminded me of Grace Kelly (again).

Yes, now that Peggy's lost the ponytail she needs to either lose the bangs altogether or have them swept to one side or the other. I know the "That Girl" Laurie Petrie flip was in, but I was hoping to see Peggy in a page cut with the hair curled under.

Please do something about Joan's hair! I'm not sure if it's a French twist in the back because of what's going on on top, but it looks soooo flattened down this season. Couldn't Joan wear it down or a page cut too, and look a little more modern? Joan's pretty stylish, but she looks like she's losing it.

The fashion for 1962 is not quite right. Those skirts were passe
by that date. They are 1954 -57 when the "sack" started to take
over. OK, maybe out in the hinterlands women (girls!) still wore
them but not in NYC.
Whoever suggested pants for Betty is out of the loop. Until YSL
made pants acceptable, very few women wore pants, just artistic types. In 1962 women and girls started, yes, started to
get their ears pierced. Before than, it was supreme declasse.
The 1960s, as we now depict it, did not really start until about
1967. Sure, there were those giant beehives. Women still did
not admit to coloring their hair then, in 1962. Just look at the
newsreels of the time. There is a ton of stuff surrounding
Dallas, 1963. In places like Harvard Square you would see
very long hair, black stockings, pants, dangling earrings (pierced), Marimekkos, boots. But it was not there on Mad
Ave. Sheaths and pumps still reigned. Around 1966, things
changed, with really gorgeous sheaths, square armholes,
shorter skirts, Puccis, Guccis, streaked hair, (in NYC).
The gorgeous Joan would have adapted. it was also in late
'66 and '67 that black (term used then) women began to
show up in offices. People adapted. Skirts got shorter,
then even shorter.
As for Betty, she's a suburban mother. Not cutting edge.
And as for Peggy, NO ONE would have that hairdo unless she worked in the mailroom, an impossibility in those days.
Peggy needs more than a makeover, she needs an overhaul.
But she's so great she'll get one. She's a powerhouse.
Also, let us not forget the shift, the most reliable outfit for
any woman (girl) working in NYC. Pull it over your head,
put on some earrings, ready to go.
Whatever year the next season begins with, Betty will not
have had another child. Maybe she'll fall off her horse, that
old chestnut, or maybe that woman she talked to at the hairdresser will set her up at the Caribe Hilton, the destination of choice for so many Park Avenue "ladies in distress" who, at least, came back with a suntan and an interest in Cuba Libres.

Here's a fun website where you can get an idea of the styles, designers, colors, fabrics etc. of clothes by year: http://www.paperpast.com/html/1964_fashion.html

The link is to 1964 (since that's likely where we'll start season 3) but at the top of the page you can click on any year to see what fashions were in vogue, so to speak.

@Auburn Annie: Thank you for the website (and another attached to it). How in the world did you ever stumble across that? Very interesting - am looking at some of my childhood clothes. I still have some of my seventies clothes - the best being red snakeskin sky high platforms!

What I remember is fashion also being inspired by the movies (Doctor Zhivago, Bonnie & Clyde) with the Russian coats, and the thirties style and berets, and empire dresses, paisleys, madras shorts, pants in plaids that bled and seersucker fabrics.

I don't think Betty will be wearing maternity clothes anytime soon, Marimekko or otherwise. She is determined to lose that baby, come heck or highwater, or Cuban missiles, whichever comes first. When she dropped the kids at the Roosevelt, she told Don she was going riding ("Carlos will be there.") I'm certain she had the fling in the incredibly beautifully decorated mens room at the bar for the express purpose of inducing a miscarriage. (Hint: in those days, pregnant women were supposed to avoid having sex during the pregnancy because is was "dangerous for the baby". Of course, smoking a pack a day and drinking vodka is quite therapeutic!) But first she had to overcome her repulsion at sleeping with someone other than her husband, because as we know infidelity is Crime #1 in her mind. All she needed was a stiff gimlet to help her justify saving her own life. Because of course, from her point of view, she isn't going to survive having another child. She already has two with whom she is totally unable to connect. In those days, having children (or not) wasn't a choice for women and for many, society's expectations were a fatal burden. Betty knows enough about herself to realize that having a third child will be the end of her. When the dirty mensroom deed was done (that guy was supercute by the way), she didn't feel like she was getting even with Don for his affairs. She didn't sleep with that guy for revenge. She did it to keep her head above water. And Betty knows her only power is her sex. In her mind, she used it for good, not evil.

No miscarriage - see the interview with Matt Weiner, part II where he mentions Betty will have three children and talks about how stuck she feels. Unless she loses this one then has another later on, I'd say we will be seeing Draper child #3 in the next season.

Fashion--was out there in the 1950's, early 60's. Because there was TV, American teens, college girls, housewives and career women could see what was being worn by the sophisticated and wealthy. Just a matter of copying clothes and hairstyles. I lived in a small town and we wore capris a-la the Beatnik look, flats, ponytails, like Audrey Hepburn - just not to school. In the early sixties, we wore miniskirts and short hair. I went to college with severAl homemade sheaths and "sacks" copied from store displays but kept my crinolines (had to have at least 4) for a couple more years. By 1962, pants were fashionable and bleached blonde hair and lots of mascara was popular. I think Mad Men is mostly on target - but maybe office wear was a bit more conservative then what movie stars were wearing. Mainly because men's fashions changed slowly and that made the women dress low-key also. But at least the clothes were well made with dressmaker details (darts, waistbands, pleats, etc.) then.

It is true about shampooing hair once a week. Even as a teen you waited until the weekend to shampoo. Then later the beauty shoppe was where you got a shampoo and set and kept it up by wrapping your hair at nite and pin-curling. Housewives in the 60's thought nothing of going out in public with rollers and scarves - and usually a cigarette dangling from their lips and even a baby curled up in the crook of their arms (no car seats/strollers yet).

Ahhhhh - those were the days.... or DAZE