Featured Shows
All AMC Shows
More Shows
Watch Online
Featured Movies
Movies on AMC
Movie Resources
Watch Online
Start a Conversation
Talk is a public forum where you can ask questions and share your commentary with fellow Mad Men fans.
1960s clothing
I love this series and it reflects what I recall about that era as accurately as anything possibly can from this distance. The prevalent male attitude toward women was why I entered what was at that time one of the few male-dominated professions in which women had a half-way decent shot at success...journalism.
Less important, but equally interesting to many, are the accoutrements of that era.
While the show's men's fashions seem spot on, the women's are more rooted in the mid-'50s than the last of that decade and on into 1960. I was wearing straight-line, empire or A-line silhouettes by1958 and much shorter skirts by 1960. Some of my dresses were still the fitted sheaths these secretaries wear, but the tight waisted, full-skirted shirt dresses were long gone in 1960. The last full-skirt, tight-waist dresses I had in that era were evening wear only.
I also had left behind dresses and suits for anything except work and dress occasions. Slacks (and even jeans) were becoming a major part of my wardrobe by my first college graduation in 1960...although we were required to wear skirts to class unless the temperature was below freezing. But I didin"t wear pantsuits to work until about 1964.
If I didnt' have photos to prove it, I'd question my time recollections on all this .
I wonder how the women's clothes were chosen for the first year of the series and if they were deliberately less fashionable than the things I recall.
I so appreciate your insights into the styles of the early Sixties-since you lived them, quite literally.
I was born in 1962 and have long been a peripheral "student" of Fashion, and I am in that business today. My sense is that the Costume directer in tandem with the overall Set and Production designers/decorators realized that there was a lot of overlap, if not a synthesisizing, of the previous decade in modes of dressing (and also in the sphere of residential/commercial Design).
Betty's (and Trudy's) occasional full skirts are reminiscient of Grace Kelly,Doris Day, and Queen Elizabeth II. Then you have demure if not frumpish-utilitarian attire like Peggy's. Then, bombshell fitted dresses like Joan wears. . .I.e. there existed (pervasively) an amalgamation of aesthetics: pre-Mod and post-Suzy in Chanel, and during early Beatnik that is (I think) well-exemplified/ executed in the diegesis and mise en scene of Mad Men. Trends take awhile to happen ala Masskultur manifestation!
I know the writers and producers are aiming for authenticity and plausibility, and I think that they are doing a rather "bang-up" job.
Cheers!
Exactly...How many of us still wear a sweater from seven years ago? I know I do. In fact I just threw out a pair of shoes I bought in 1991 and was still wearing. Very few people wear cutting edge clothing all of the time. I would have a problem if the clothes were after the time period...but have characters wearing clothing with in a ten year period after is quite plausiable and realistic.
I agree with Gray that those shirtwaist dress and crinoline petticoats were just a bit before this time. The sack, the shift, the chemise, the trapeze and the straight and A-line skirt were more in style then, but the only one I recall wearing anything like that this season was Joy.
I watch the show but am clearly not as into it as some of you on here, but I was born in 1949 so I grew up in that time of transition from the 50s to the 60s and remember the fashions well, both from what I wore as well as from watching my mom and older sister. Shirtwaist dresses with full skirts were common well into the 60s; a lot of women just kept shortening them to stay in style. And bouffant-skirted cocktail dresses were still in all the stores in 1965 (of course along with sheaths and a-lines). I know stores carried crinoline petticoats in the womens department until at least 1963 when my mom bought one to wear to a cousin's wedding. After that, I think most bouffant dresses started coming with attached petticoats that only gave a little fullness. Of course the girls department carried petticoats until much later and, much to my chagrin, I was made to wear them daily until long after they were out of style.
You are quite right. The men's clothes are as they were in the early 60s. However I think men in advertising would have worn slightly more Ivy League furnishings like button down shirts. The suits and hats are correct however and I did spot a tab collar on Pete in one episode. However, my women friends...all of whom were between 16 and 25 in 1962 agree with you that the women's clothing is too late 1950s. For example, the chemise dress was hugely successful by 1962, and the women in the office should have been wearing them. Also the women's hairstyles are not quite as elaborate as they were at the time. All the girls from New York in my college class in 1962 wore those Beehive hairdos and they wore an absolute ton of hairspray. SprayNet was the big brand then. If the show returns they need to move the women's fashions a bit forward. Also where are all the Jackie Kennedy copycat clothes? Oleg Cassini's designs were widely copied at every price point.
I don't agree about the women's clothing. Perhaps it depends on where you lived. I grew up in the Midwest at that time and my Mom was a working Mom, not a fashion slave, but dressing was important to all ladies in those days. She wore shirtwaist dresses well into the 1960s and I ironed them, so I remember.
I don't remember anyone I knew wearing short skirts then - they didn't come to our area until mid to late 1960s, and then only younger females like myself were wearing them. I associate the empire dresses with the early 70s. Seems like everyone wore one to their prom.
I don't think the fashion magazines of that time are a good guideline because most people didn't change their styles that quickly. Jackie Kennedy had more of an impact on fashion that anyone else, but that was with younger women, not women like my Mom or others her age. Most women I knew at that time just felt the way Jackie dressed was for rich women, not themselves.
I know for a fact that pantsuits were not allowed at any workplace in my city until the early 1970s as I was one of the first females at my company to wear one. It was a very cold winter day and I wore my new green pantsuit to work. One of the nasty girls I worked with said I was going to get into trouble, so I got on the phone, called HR and asked if I needed to go home because I was wearing a pantsuit. I was told no problem.
Gray, you were a trendsetter by wearing all those items, but you would have been grossly out of place in my neck of the woods.
I totally agree with Gray. I already mentioned this fact during Season 1. We're not talking about the Mid West and we're not talking about older women. Young girls who lived and worked in New York City (including those who lived at home in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, etc.) spent half their salary on clothes. I was 17 in 1962 and spent 3/4 of my salary on clothes. (I still lived at home in Inwood which is the far upper end of Manhattan). I remember wearing A-Line Anne Klein dresses (with a slight blousy top) that I bought in Bonwit's that cost $25.00 to $35.00 on sale. I also remember wearing sleeveless heavy wool A-Line dresses all winter. My beige Jackie Kennedy coat cost $80.00 in Bloomingdales. Even when I was still in high school I had a collarless coat with big buttons in 1961.
The young women at Sterling Cooper are dressed slightly off. Their hair is not quite right either. Young women in 1962 NYC were wearing their hair in all different styles, short, pixie, mid length, long. Very few were wearing their hair up in a twist. Slightly old fashioned looking for a young girl. The fashionable shoe in NYC in 1962 for daytime was also a stacked heel worn with the A-Line dresses. If you didn't wear a stacked heel your heel was straight. The curved heel was old fashioned at the time.
Okay I'm getting a little obsessive. Remember we're talking about NYC.
HI
I was amazed that Gray was wearing pantsuits in '62... As a midwesterner, fashion was about 5 years behind the NY curve but Jackie had huge impact .. Millinary was loosing out but moms still wore gloves to parent teacher conferences and church.The Easter '62 congregation was all about the pillbox hat.
After living on the East coast for a couple of years, I returned to the midwest in the spring of '70.. I wore my best pantsuit and slipped into the pew next to my mother... She was outraged at my costume and could hardly restrain her sharp comments to me until after the service. I got the message and no more pants to church for me...
The shirtwaist dresses, snugley belted w/ full and flirty skirts were leftover 50's but still very much in vouge for women of all ages... Gloria, Betty's new stepmother, captures it exactly.. Hat's off to Mamie Eisenhower!!
When did blondes start having more fun? Betty and Gloria are the only blondes in the cast. I expect to see more color experimentation in the typing pool next season.
I graduated from college in 1960 and started working in NYC in 1962. For work I wore my college wardrobe - in the winter good wool skirts and sweaters, occasionally a dress, no pants ever. I had a camel's hair polo coat and a lined raincoat with a fur collar.In summer shirt dresses and skirts and blouses and cotton knit dresses. Most women wore gloves year round, but not hats. Everybody dressed up to go out to dinner or to the theater, the little black dress was ubiquitous. I don't think I owned a pair of jeans until the 70s.
Great post! Even though I was born during the late 60's, I admire the decade. I'm not particularly crazy about the hair fashions but I love everything else, especially menswear. I found this great site that sells retro and modern style casual clothing for men on http://www.cafepress.com/Meep/6373102
I was born in 1991 so the mad men era is a bit before my time but I am researching fashion in the 50s and 60s and I found out that shirtwaist dresses were popular in the 60s.My grandmother got maried in 1960 and I have an old photograph of her and my grandfather having a photo just outsite their house my grandmother was wearing a shirtwaist dress with stiletoe shoes I asked my grandmother what colour was her dress because the picture was taken in black and white and she told me it was baby blue she told me she liked this shirtwaist dresses that atleast she had two of them the my grandmother told me the second one was white with stripes and it had an attached undeskirt
also my grandmother told me that full skirts with petticoats were still in fashion till 1964 I did some research on the internet and I found out that stiletoe white pointy heels were very popular in the early 60s along with full skirts often full skirts were bare armed to give to the woman this childlike look as for the hairstyles the beehive and the bouffant look were in fashion as well as the flip hairstyle tht gained popularity in the early 60s also skirt lengths became shorter in 1959.