Fashion Week is looming, and, for those of us in the industry, that means three big things:

1. More excuses to dress up.
2. More excuses to stay out.
3. More excuses to ask, Zoolander-style, "What's your inspiration?"

It's a cliché question and one that designers tackle in a variety of ways. Zac Posen keeps a board full of vintage sketches and fabric swatches in the front of his studio. Elise Overland compiles photos from around the world above her desk. (Last season's featured open-heart surgery and were taken by a friend in the operating room.) The rock-and-roll thread banger Zaldy once told me his stock answer was, "I'm inspired by the toilet -- and poop in particular."

That's a good retort, but more likely this season you'll hear a chorus of runway designers say "Mad Men" and mean it. After all, it wouldn't be the first time.

In 2008, following Mad Men's first season, Michael Kors sent his fall collection down the runway with Jacquard, jewel-tone fabrics, fur accents, sylph silhouettes -- and evening gloves. All the models needed were name tags reading, "Hello, my name is... BETTY." Backstage, Kors confessed his love for the show and even hosted the premiere of Season 2 when it debuted (right around the time his "Draper or bust" clothes hit stores).

But that was just the beginning.

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Mad Men Set to Make Waves at NYC's Fashion Week Again" »

The holiday season is upon us and with it a hundred possibilities for a "What am I going to wear?" panic. Thankfully, you can use Mad Men as inspiration to pull together an outfit infused with major glamor. Accessorize the dresses of the '60s-era archetypes listed below with a simple clutch, a cigarette, and a martini glass then watch the sparks fly!

The Lady Exec - Topshop, $250
You're smart. You're modern. And you're dazzling. Literally, almost everything in your closet has some sort of bold graphic or sequin. Being an intellectual showgirl isn't easy, which is why you need this killer dress, loaded with sequins but tamed by a slim, short silhouette. Let's face it: You'll never get over your jerky ex-boyfriend without a little extra sex appeal.

The Divorcee - Sonia Rykiel, $948
People are expecting big things from your holiday party. After all, now that you've remarried, you're the adult equivalent of your town's homecoming queen. So leave guests stunned with this incredible evening gown from Paris. With its sophisticated shape and a bow that says, "I'm fun, really; I swear," this outfit may be incredibly expensive, but that's okay. You have a rich new husband for such emergencies.

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - How to Dress Like a Season 4 Mad Woman" »

What a great episode for the women: Each of them gets their own triumph, or at least their own truth, at some point in the story. But despite their very different arcs, the female leads have one thing in common... Except for Megan, none of the women wears much color. That's long been a trait with the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce execs, but now it's not just Don and the boardroom draped in gray, blue, and beige; it's their female counterparts too, as if something beautiful is somehow seeping out of them. Of course, that's kind of true, at least for the moment. Megan is taking all the attention, both in the bedroom and in the office, leaving the other women as shadows around Don's sunny "new" life. Sure, Peggy wears a red-and-beige-spotted blouse at the beginning of the episode, but it's under a gray vest and the colors are the same as her office's walls and chairs, making her (once again) blend into the background. And even Stephanie, who's younger and more forward than any other girl on the show, sports dark jeans and an off-white eyelet top -- a California uniform without the oranges, yellows, and greens you see outside.

What a contrast Stephanie's laid-back no-big-deal youth is to Megan's heightened dewiness. One California scene has her dressed like a girl's ballerina fantasy -- white sundress, full painted skirt, pink hair-ribbon, and pink lipstick. She looks positively ready to burst or to float away on a hundred sparkly balloons, as if being fresh and beautiful is the only thing that can save Don's world. She continues the streak with her black beaded cocktail dress -- with a cutout diamond at the bust instead of a softer keyhole -- and the yellow, floral-print cotton shift she wears to Disneyland. And check out Megan in the pool in a bikini. Immediately, we flashed back to Betty Draper in the same outfit and Don's scowl of, "Take that off; you're my wife." Well, not anymore.

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Megan Steals the Show... and the Color" »

In "Blowing Smoke," cigarette campaigns and ruinous addictions both stoke the plot and influence the costumes. When Don Draper wrote an anti-tobacco manifesto for the New York Times, he didn't just have an ironic cancer stick in his hand. He also had an ash-colored suit and tie that referenced his nicotine clouds, Roger's "black spot on the X-ray" comment, and the boardroom suggestion that the agency was "decaying." In fact, a quick survey of the SCDP senior partners in their first meeting in this episode shows them all in various shades of gray, black, and white -- skeleton colors, if we're being honest. Add Faye Miller at the end of the table with a jagged black-and-white blouse, and the bleak at-death's-door vibe is palpable. They look like a pile of bones.

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Skeletons in the Boardroom" »

This episode may be called "Chinese Wall," but I think we could rename it "Opposite Day" -- at least where the clothes are concerned. That's because the wardrobe choices are completely clashing (at least in mood) with the situations onscreen -- kind of like that earlier scene where Miss Blankenship died at her desk, and all the secretaries stood around her body, in Easter Egg colors. They were dressed for a garden party, but standing at a funeral prelude. It was funny. Similar things happen in this episode, which makes the show feel dreamlike and almost surreal.

The main example has to do with "the subordinates" -- the characters with bosses at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Despite the bleak circumstances that come with the departure of Lucky Strike, a lot of them are dressed in bright, primary colored outfits that make them look like little children. Pete slips a navy polo underneath a Crayon-blue blazer, Faye's pink dress is the color of Kool-Aid, and Rizzo's blue and yellow striped shirt skews past the Mod look and ends up looking closer to a grown-up Dennis the Menace. Megan's yellow dress matches a Cheerios box. And Danny looks like the very serious, very eager little kid who dresses up for school, his tiny stature and huge tie adding a "sandbox" feel to the scene where Cooper announces the departure of the company's primary client.

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Children's Clothes and Grownup Situations" »

If this episode is about unraveling -- Don's identity, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's finances, Joan and Roger's relationship, Lane's American dream -- then the costumes should reflect the plot. But it's got to be more subtle than Don running around in a suit with holes in it. His life may be threatening to burst at the seams, but he's Don Draper, and his clothes need to keep it together. And they do that in the neatest way. His suit and tie seem to get tighter and tighter on his body until Don's clothes, his superficial front, threaten to strangle him whole. Watch this progression until the panic attack scene where his shirt is practically popping open, as if his own shell can't contain him, which of course it can't. Don in a white T-shirt on his bed is an Everyman but also a nobody. It's a blank slate, and it reflects the emotional state that lets him tell Faye who he really is. Also it's really sexy. Duh.

As for the rest of the characters, you get small signals about their own implosions. Roger's suit looks a little small in the first scene -- his wrists are popping out like a gangly boy who needs a grown-up-size jacket; Lane's three-piece suit with a cream vest is reminiscent of the one the Mickey Mouse doll wears; and Joan's pencil skirt is simple and black, a piece of "Don't go there" armor that reflects her forbidden condition. (As to her seductive satin dress with dark roses, there's a very similar dress at Barneys right now from the British designer Erdem, who specializes in sculpted torsos and floral prints.)

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Sex, Lies, and Bunny Ears" »

This episode really belongs to Sally Draper, and not just because of her devastating kicking and screaming. Her short dress with the neon flowers was a harbinger of everything Sally's generation will be: loud, hopeful, playful, defiant, and impossible to ignore. And although Twiggy won't emerge as a fashion superstar until 1966, there are suggestions of her fragile, rebellious look in Sally now. There was also something funny about Sally sleeping in Don's white T-shirt, because it was just as long as her dress. In fact, you can pretty much get that look today -- for under $100 -- from T by Alexander Wang.

That said, if I had to give this episode a tagline, I might go with "Come see the softer side of Faye" because right from the beginning there she is: loose, tousled hair; matte pink lips; smudged makeup. Of course, it helps that she's naked in bed with Don Draper, but still the theme of Faye deconstructed keeps going throughout this episode, both internally and externally. On the clothing front, that sometimes means softer colors (marigold yellow instead of black and white), lighter silhouettes (drop waists instead of boxy jackets and constricting tweed skirts), and a string of pearls that are actually pretty small and neutral. For Faye, anyway.

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Sally Draper, Style Icon (In Case You Forgot)" »

Last week, we noticed a new theme for Don Draper -- black, white, and gray. The color palette of newspapers and moral distinctions is Don's new favorite outfit: Call it the desaturated shark suit. This episode, when we see Don smoking a cigarette, while wearing Ray-Ban aviators (created for pilots in the '30s; popular with civilians in the mid-'60s), he's in a gray suit again with a skinny black tie. He looks cool and aloof, but with the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" blaring on the soundtrack, well, I nearly lost it.

As usual, Peggy follows suit -- literally -- and copies Don's ensemble with a purple-and-gray-checked dress of her own. What a contrast to Joan's neon pink dress with a shantung collar and cut that references the Balenciaga trend we talked about earlier this year. It's also good ammunition for Joey's "Shanghai madame" comment, even though that was so not cool. (By the way, notice Joey in his signature yellow shirt and Rizzo in his blue Ben Sherman polo? These boys have uniforms, too, even if they don't look like Don's. And check out Miss Blankenship's cataract glasses. They look like Wayfarers, and they're probably the only cool part of her outfit. Talk about a hysterical contrast to Don's shades.)

Continue reading "The Mad Men Fashion File - Summer in the City" »