Jessica Witte, *Mad Men*'s Impact on the Material Culture of Fashion

The Mad Men-inspired products in popular consumer culture have multiplied since the show’s 2007 debut. The boxed series themselves are works of collectible memorabilia, and fans can read books discussing everything from the food to the ad culture of 1960s New York.  Mattel even designed a line of limited-edition Barbies modeled after Don, Betty, Roger, and Joan.  (Of course, the Barbie set doesn’t include the iconic Sterling Cooper cocktail glasses, but you can buy a set here.)  But Mad Men’s influence in the fashion and design world is arguably its greatest impact on popular culture today.  Fans can buy Mad Men-inspired makeup, nail polish, and even Brooks Brothers suits.  Janie Bryant, the costume designer for the show, collaborated with Banana Republic to create two Mad Men collections.  Bryant also wrote The Fashion File: Advice, Tips, and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men, which offers women fashion and beauty advice now that “finally, it’s hip to dress well again.”  Bryant even wants to help men “look a little more Don Draper-dashing.”  As January Jones explains in the introduction to Bryant’s book,

“I think one of the hugest compliments to Janie’s work on Mad Men is how it has inspired modern fashion.  Michael Kors was one of the first to come out with a Mad Men-inspired collection.  We’re suddenly seeing a waistline again and the silhouettes of the ‘50s and early ‘60s.  I’m happily surprised to see women dressing like women again; a feminine tribute through tailoring.” (xi)

Like Jones, the post-World War II fashion world was also eager for a return to traditionally feminine dress.  As Meenasarani Linde Murugan notes in her article “Maidenform: Temporalities of Fashion,”  wartime rationing meant that the “lingerie, corsets, waist cinchers, and girdles” that made a hyper-feminine silhouette possible became “excessive,” and so women’s clothing “stressed simplicity and utility in the silhouette” that was often coded “more ‘masculine’” in style (169).  Furthermore, as Mabel Rosenheck describes in “Swing Skirts and Swinging Singles: Mad Men, Fashion, and Cultural Memory,”

During the Second World War, women went to work alongside men and, at least in heavy industry, adopted male fashions: pants, overalls, and caps (Steele, 80-82).  After 1945, with soldiers returning from overseas, women were supposed to return to the home, give their jobs back to men, resume their unpaid duties as wives and mothers, and refashion themselves in New Look femininity.” (166-167)

This “New Look,” popularized by Christian Dior in 1947, included an “exaggerated hourglass shape and full skirt” that, like Victorian fashions, required “a petticoat, crinoline, and corset,” as Caroline Hamilton discusses in “Seeing the World Second Hand: Mad Men and the Vintage Consumer.”  So, the New Look marked a return to exaggerated, normative gender roles, as shaping undergarments became once again “practical” and necessary to construct the “natural” female form. 

            In the early 1960s, the rise of the working woman contributed to the demise of the New Look.  Rosenheck describes how the “tight waist and multiple, full stiff petticoats supporting circle skirts” gave way to more practical “tailored, figure-hugging sheaths” which allowed secretaries to move more freely around offices.  While Joan and the Sterling Cooper secretaries have escaped the petticoat as working women, they have not abandoned shaping undergarments. In her book, Bryant describes how

“The actors saunter into the fitting room wearing contemporary clothes and makeup.  It’s my job to transport these actors back to another era and help them become their characters.  How to turn a fitting room into a time machine?  My secret weapon for the women is a cache of undergarments, from closed-bottom girdles with garters to lacy bullet brassieres.  These foundations affect how the characters walk, sit, and sigh, and the transformation begins with that first breath.” (xiv) 

Christina Hendricks admits that she has “two scars from the rubber where [she attaches her] garters,” and that she “would complain more, but [the garments] make [her] look good.”  For example, the girdle “changed her posture and forced her to walk with more confidence in her stride, making her feel good about how she looks” despite the physical “toll on the body.”  Interestingly, despite today’s focus on comfortable, practical fashion, mid-century styles so dependent on body-shaping undergarments are nevertheless idealized by fashion designers and consumers alike.

            While most of the women in Mad Men wear the 1960s sheath dress, Betty and the other suburban housewives are generally dressed in the New Look.  For example, in Episode 2.3, “The Benefactor,” Jennifer Crane wears a late-50s, full-skirted shirtdress while knitting baby clothes and waiting for her husband to come home.  Although Betty’s riding costume includes pants, boots, and a tweed jacket at the stable, her outfit is still hyper-feminized in comparison to Sara Beth Carson’s. While both women wear red lipstick and pearl earrings--in the clip-on style of the 1960s--Sara Beth’s loose slacks and masculine necktie contrast with Betty’s fitted jodhpurs and bow tie.  And, after riding, Betty immediately goes home to “get cleaned up,” or to return to her New Look femininity. 

            At Lutece with Don and clients, Betty returns wears a girlish bright pink halter dress with a full skirt, which contrasts with Bobbie Barrett’s deep green, fitted frock.  Don has instructed Betty to “be shiny and bright” to please Jimmy, and she succeeds.  However, Betty’s relationship to Don can never be anything more than subordinate.  While Bobbie occupies a modern status as both wife and manager to her husband, Betty describes herself as “a housewife” with two children.  Bobbie’s sheath dress allows her to move fluidly through the public sphere, while Betty’s full skirt and petticoats keep her relegated to the domestic sphere as a visual symbol of postwar femininity.