Mod Men
The attraction between Marie and Roger is pretty instant at the gala, to which Marie wears a sheer-topped black column dress and diamond-pearl earrings.
When Howard and Pete arrive home for dinner one night, Beth has an apron tied around her dark plaid dress, and June Cleaver–y pearls and lipstick pertly in place. But when she sees Pete and he pleads with her to meet him for a midtown assignation, she flees with a migraine, leaving Howard to serve the roast chicken. It’s unknown whether he then dons the apron.
In one of the show’s more touching insights into the fabric of the Francis marriage, Henry cooks himself a stovetop steak in a navy piped robe and his pajamas. (Tousled-hair, off-duty Henry is our favorite Henry.) Betty dutifully gets him a plate and utensils in her grandmotherly nightgown that fits over her stout frame like a tea cozy. Their affirmation of partnership—spouting Weight Watchers–inflected pseudo-philosophy, but still—is what makes their marriage a strong one, even as Betty jealously evaluates Don and Megan’s relationship throughout the episode.
Sally is called “a little girl” at least twice in this episode—but she acts more adult than she ever has. She makes Megan cry, she pulls the wool over Betty’s eyes, and she sternly reprimands Don for not telling her about his first marriage. Here, her prim lilac waffle-weave turtleneck and gold necklace sweetly belie her smooth-operator tactics.
On the day that Megan quits, Michael and Stan stare in disbelief, while Peggy (in a blue vest with gold buttons from last season over a pink blouse) looks in bewilderment at her colleague, whose plummy print dress is offset with a bold gold-chain necklace and dark lipstick. We love the contrast here between Peggy’s meticulously crisp, daren’t-deviate office uniform—slide-rule just out of frame?—and Megan’s unusual Navajo motif, in the colors of a sunset. Good-bye, Megan! We’ll miss your leggy stalking through the office, terrorizing Harry.
Marie, played by Julia Ormond, is the height of Gallic glamour in black and pearls, swilling red wine and smoking a cigarette.
With Megan playing “perfect wife” in a bit on Cool Whip she’s rehearsed with Don, she wears a scarlet dress with matching lipstick. When you watch Joan and Peggy harsh on Megan being “That Girl” in a later moment of this episode, this is the image you should recall.
In this, one of the best shots of the season, the camera frames a freewheelingly barefoot Megan—we’d seen her moments before sans shirt, dressing her enviably sleek frame with Betty agog—across from Don’s ex-wife in full mom regalia, set against the skyline. Only moments before, Betty’s bulky frame (and frame bag) has knocked a table lamp in passing. Heartbreaking.
Mrs. Draper, alone in her principles. After Megan alienates her actress friend and is left solo in the expensively appointed sunken living room, she’s momentarily despondent—but still looks the part of a well-kempt Upper East Side wife (manicured nails, tight maroon sweater, tasteful wristwatch) that her friend rightly accuses her of being.
Peggy, also welcoming her mother into her apartment, goes domestic goddess in a printed, rickrack-trimmed apron and oven mitts (over a blue-and-green hostess dress, echoing the same colors of Megan’s earlier hostess ensemble). Abe—just out of this shot—wears his usual underground-newspaper tweed.
In a brilliant visual joke, a bewildered Harry Crane (in his media-executive overcoat, leather briefcase, and wool-felt hat) stands in relief against the voile hippie curtains over the backs of Paul Kinsey’s fellow Hare Krishna believers. The sight gag is repeated a bit later in the episode when, leaving to get a bite, Harry is forced to gather up all the accoutrements of his squareness—fumbling with his shoes, bag, coat, hat—while possessionless Paul simply glides out.
More mod paisley and short hemlines for the fresh young wife—here in a peacock-colored shift, Megan plays hostess to out-of-towners.
For her visit to New York, Megan’s effete Montrealer mother, Marie Calvet, wears a scarlet boiled-wool dress and matching boxy jacket, complemented with a brooch and a mohair knit hat.
Late fall means plaids for the men, and we like the way that each male character’s choice in plaid bespeaks his personality. Subtle, muted-gray plaid for Don; loud and effusive car-coat plaid for Michael Ginsburg, with upturned collar; a cheery blue plaid scarf (Cynthia picked this out, we’re sure) for Ken Cosgrove over a soft-looking, sensitive-gray tweed overcoat; and a flashy plaid overcoat in navy and red for television guru Harry Crane. We like how costume designer Janie Bryant has helped facilitate the unexpected flip-flop of Ken-and-Harry likeability—the overbearing lothario Ken has been tamed; chubby, nervous Harry has become a despised blowhard—through tweaks to their wardrobes.
Connubial, Brooks Brother–ian bliss! Megan and Don in his-and-hers pajama sets, Megan’s in sunny, optimistic yellow, Don’s in muted stripes.
This plotline—this bizarre, suspension-of-disbelief plotline—is one of our favorites of the season, being both Paul Kinsey enthusiasts and stubborn believers in Harry Crane’s secreted sensitive side. Paul, in his slightly moth-eaten mustard-yellow turtleneck, cream robes, and shaved head with lonely braid, accepts Harry’s gift of a ticket to L.A. with heartbreaking doe eyes, leaving the sect he believed would eventually accept him. We believe in you, Paul!
Betty directs dagger eyes toward Megan’s easy charm, at left, gathering up the kids from their twice-monthly visit to their father’s home. Megan looks Thanksgiving-y already in her own interpretation of fall attire: a orange paisley tie-necked blouse, slim trousers, a brown velveteen vest, and a brownish lipstick. Her barefootedness on the cream shag carpet—itself a decorative defiance of having small children—only makes her seem younger than Betty.
Betty wards off the Thanksgiving-time chill in New York with a fawn-colored cable-knit sweater, pearls, and a wool plaid skirt. To go out and fetch the kids, she adds red lipstick, a scarf, and her houndstooth tweed coat. She’s seen here peeking into the Drapers’ tastefully mod Upper East Side living room—worlds apart from Henry and Betty’s gloomy, neo-Gothic McMansion in Rye.
In this sexually electric but ultimately bittersweet extended scene between Don and Joan at a post-work drink, we’re left wondering what would have happened if these two—these titans of S.C.D.P. self-assurance and sex appeal—had ever gotten together. Fireworks? Nuclear disaster? Three kids and a golden retriever? Over drinks and bar nibbles, wool-flanneled Don does a Sinatra impression with his fedora; Joan (still wearing her engagement ring) feeds the jukebox. When Don leaves, Joan contemplates briefly a one-night stand with another man—but ultimately goes home to Kevin.
Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel makes a guest appearance as the wife of Howard, Pete’s Metro-North boyfriend, in suburban-housewife stock-issue attire of blouses, pearls, and slim skirts. When we first meet Beth (at left), she’s in wistful ocher and wears a robin’s-egg-blue scarf and mink-collared coat (unseen) to the station. Later, on the phone, she’s in girly pink with red nails.
Perfect hostess Trudy Campbell feeds her daughter and fends off Don’s dinner demurrals by phone in a paisley-printed turquoise housedress with a full skirt—reminiscent of the day dresses Betty used to wear in the first few seasons.
We imagine Trudy had her hair set in rollers at the Cos Cob beauty parlor, while she thumbed through back issues of Ladies Home Journal, to help achieve her perfectly back-combed hairdo. Her printed hostess dress is offset by gold jewelry.
For the Saturday-night dinner in suburban Cos Cob—or, “the country” as the characters refer to the Campbells’ Greenwich, Connecticut, neighborhood—the ladies are in colorful dresses while the men wear coordinating plaid sport coats.
Jane’s shrink (wearing a black sheer-overlay bodice and a kooky printed skirt) lets the warping sensations of LSD wash over her, while her husband—the sober “guide,” an appointment emphasized with tweed and an Ascot—surveys the drug’s effects. (To read more about LSD’s haute-Hollywood connotations in the 50s and 60s, read “Cary in the Sky with Diamonds,” from the August 2010 issue of Vanity Fair.)
With Greg returning from Vietnam, Joan has a celebratory excuse to dust off her fabulous cocktail wardrobe—including this claret dress with bustline-emphasizing brooch, at left. Her mother holds Kevin in an M.O.B.-ish floral and birdcage-veil-topped hat, right.
As the ladies get sprayed by the errant faucet, the varying silhouettes on the girls are shown in full length: a yellow shift and Hayley Mills–y haircut on the demure and moneyed Cynthia; a mod turtleneck printed dress and metallic Mary Janes on Megan; and a feminine garden-party-ish hostess dress with heels on Trudy.
The Indian-influenced beadwork on Megan’s dress bodice—including seed pearls, which mirror the ones in her necklace—is shown in close-up here.
Peggy’s ultra-traditional and Catholic mother wears a hat and a gold cross over her frumpier print. Now we know where Peggy gets her preference for umber.
At left, Megan’s accessories (sourpuss included) in close-up: gold chain-link necklace and hoop earrings, matching melon-y lipstick and dark eyeliner, and her purple-and-black printed octagonal sunglasses; the shades are only slightly less fetching on Don, right. (Note Don’s lapels—among the widest we’ve seen on him.)
Like mother, like daughter—the glamorous Calvet women, in long gowns both, showcase their similar coloring and fashion savvy; Marie in classic black and a traditional French twist, and Megan in a mod bouffant and square-necked, sari-esque melon.
For the Pryces’ celebration of England’s World Cup game—the last time, it’s worth pointing out, the country won—the pair join friends in flag-and-scarf-festooned getups, including hats and ribbons. The elegant and restrained Mrs. Pryce, who still pines for England, maintains her refinement in a peachy-pink silk brocade with pearls.
Roger looks bemused—possibly because of the belly-baring, rhinestone-embellished harem-y ensemble on his previously demure wife, Jane. Her long hair is curled into a single ringlet, and she accessorizes with hair ornaments and heavy earrings.
In close-up, Jane has other hallmarks of mid-1960s style—heavily eyelined eyes, bronzed complexion (emphasized by her cream outfit), and a nude lip.
Megan has a pinched expression that somehow fits her mix-and-clash zig-zag knit coat (we loved that the pockets have zig-zag seams—and that it echoes the HoJo roof behind her) over a knit melon-y shift with a cream-colored frame bag.
The hip, Manhattan-dwelling Drapers are in more comparatively cutting-edge attire: Megan favors a cool 1960s print of rusty, orange-y, and purple-y tones with flirty dangling earrings, while Don wears a skinny tie with a crest, his sleeves impatiently rolled up.
Megan urges Don to change into this casual plaid sport coat in lieu of the dark suit he initially puts on for their dinner in the ’burbs, which in turn means he perfectly meshes with his male dinner companions. (A-a-a-nd cue conformity-of-suburbia plotlines.) Obsequious Pete wears a duck-yellow plaid sport coat and pastel rep tie, while a contemplative and quieter Ken Cosgrove wears blue plaid with a brown skinny tie.
Peggy in a blouse we’ve seen her in during seasons prior, with a kickpleat skirt, and Joan in one of her signature colors—deep teal—and a printed scarf. The pair listen as they hear Lane and Pete fight over the intercom.
Peggy—no substitute for Megan in a clammy-handed redux of the Cool Whip husband-wife pitch—lashes out at Don after he blames her for Megan’s departure. Everything about Peggy’s ensemble here—striated shoulder stripes in drab earth tones; a heavy, deeply unsexy wool; actual, finger-pointed scold—screams “antidote” to the youthful élan and vibrancy of red-dress Megan.
For Sally’s grown-up evening out, she wears a metallic two-piece formal outfit, notably not accessorized with heavy makeup and go-go boots. Maybe when you’re 16, Sal! For his part, Don looks classically elegant in a slim shawl-collar tux, subtly pleated shirt, and cheekily askew bowtie.
Their makeup reflects their differences: Marie is midcentury classic, with red nails and lipstick, while Megan has a hip gold manicure, paired with flashier gold jewelry.
PREMIERE:
In facing a large applicant pool in the S.C.D.P. lobby, the senior partners keep things true to character: Bert in his signature four-peaks pocket square; Roger in his ubiquitous three-piece suit; Don in his skinny tie, and Lane in an Anglophilic sweater vest.
PREMIERE:
Despite Megan’s art-house crowd and the Draper’s zebra-studded duplex, Bert hews to his traditional threads: a light suit and a bowtie.
PREMIERE:
The day after her Sophia Loren–themed charade, Megan keeps things professional for a Monday back in the office with a coral short-sleeved shift dress, watch, and gold pin. Judging from her smile, this is probably from before she overhears Harry.
PREMIERE:
In the purest and best example of the mod side of mid-1960s fashion we’ve seen on Mad Men, Megan (Jessica Paré) sashays while singing “Zou Bisou Bisou” in batwinged black silk-chiffon plisse, fishnet hose, and (out of frame) some Roger Vivier–inspired square-toed heels. Costume designer Bryant reconstructed the rhinestone-trimmed, accordion-pleated sleeves on this dress, a genuine vintage article, after she found them “totally destroyed.”
Dawn, Don’s new secretary, crashed with Peggy in a blue plaid day dress after a late night. Peggy reclines in a vest-y skirt suit with one of her usual collared button-downs. (We can’t help but notice that Peggy matches her upholstery.)
Episode Three:
Bryant says she has been favoring androgynous, button-down-centric office get-ups for Peggy in season five, to emphasize that she is trying to make it in a man’s world.
PREMIERE:
For Peggy—who is a little more “old-fashioned” and concerned with professional success—Bryant chose a yellow floral party dress in a classic, almost fusty shape; it makes a stark contrast with Megan’s mod mini-dress. Abe looks on approvingly (in a skinny tie and wrinkled button down), however, though while Don’s cufflinks show he’s the breadwinner.
PREMIERE:
Bryant used the first episode’s party scene as a way to showcase all the patterns and prints of the later 1960s. Among the Young Marrieds, Pete Campbell owns his new status as a Greenwich dad in the Connecticut summer uniform (madras sportcoat, navy chinos, red tie), while Trudy looks like an Easter egg in a printed turtleneck swing dress. The Cosgroves, meanwhile, skew toward a yellow-based palette, with a gold repp tie on Ken and an orange argyle shift on Cynthia.
Episode Three:
“Season Five for Betty Francis may not be the most glamorous season,” says Bryant of Betty’s housecoat- and shift-centric wardrobe. Here, one of several boxy shifts that Betty wears throughout episode three, this one in a classic-60s floral and trimmed in fuzzy ball fringe.
PREMIERE:
Harry has adopted the hallmarks of 60s California style as head of media, thanks to his exposure to network execs and studio heads—in the party scene, he wears an olive turtleneck under a plaid sport coat before donning the ostrich boa of an “unaccompanied redhead.”
Michael Ginsburg continues his loud print-on-print—all the better to showcase his professional bombast—in episode four. Will one of the S.D.C.P. nudge him toward a gray-flannel-suit makeover?
The guy to do it would be Ken Cosgrove, who looks the part of a top accounts guy in a skinny rep tie with tie bar and faintly windowpane-checked gray suit.
Episode Three:
For tea at the Plaza after her trip to the oncologist, Betty wears a roomy floral-print blouse with several ropes of suburban-mom pearls. Working with Betty Francis as an overweight mom is “challenging,” says costume designer Janie Bryant on AMCTV.com, because “it’s like working with a whole new person.”
PREMIERE:
Much is made among the S.C.D.P. secretary pool of Joan’s post-baby slimdown—and baby-filled pram! Hi, Kevin—but we’ll turn our attention to her jet-jewel-cuffed pink duchess-satin dress. Bryant, who designed this dress herself, calls it “a dinner or a cocktail dress,” and evokes Joan’s need to shake off the maternity kimonos after weeks of being cooped up in her apartment. The teeny-bopper stand-in secretary looks youthful in a wide-collared yellow shift.
By Michael Yarish/AMC.
Episode Three:
Both clad in sensible, muted separates, Raymond Geiger and his wife are in New York to meet with S.C.D.P. about Heinz, where Mr. Geiger is an executive; they scoff during the meal at their daughter’s love of the Rolling Stones, also in the city for a tour appearance.
PREMIERE:
As the only one to wear a long gown to the party—in burnt orange and white silk, also a genuine vintage piece—Jane Sterling lives up to her categorization as “the glamour-puss with the tan,” per Trudy Campbell. “She has a lot of fun spending money,” says Bryant of Jane’s character.
Episode Three:
One of episode three’s more heartbreaking edits cuts from Betty straining at her zipper and ultimately giving up to Megan getting ready for an important Heinz dinner and easily fitting into her cocktail dress. Its purple-and-blue almost Aztec design emphasizes Megan’s modernity compared with the dowdy Pittsburgh-based Geigers.
Episode Three:
For new copywriter Michael Ginsburg, a loud tie and plaid sport coat—worn to his first-round interview at S.C.D.P.—are in line with his outsize, off-the-cuff personality.
PREMIERE:
As Pete dresses down his charges, fratty art director Stan—in his tight blue polo and floodwaters—looks every bit the part of Jughead, Peggy’s occasional comic-book nickname for him. For Peggy, Bryant has a tradition of fitting her in the first episode of every new season in a dress from a previous year; here, for the start of season five, she wears a black linen dress from season four with black-and-white ribbon trim.
One of our favorite shots of the season: the five remaining partners of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce survey the views they’ll have on their new floor, purchased with the flood of cash that’s come into the agency. Joan, in a red wasp-waisted dress, carries a can of spray paint, marking a giant red X on the carpet.
The theater, the theater—what has happened to the theater?! Don does nothing to disguise his repulsion at a performance of American Hurrah, which he takes as a direct critique of his profession. He is, in fact, wearing the “costume” of most of the performers. Megan, in tassel rhinestone chandelier earrings and a jewel-necked red shift, looks more Upper East Side wife than bohemian wannabe, but at least she enjoys the show.
On a cheer-up outing with Don to a Jaguar dealership—to which she wears her bateau-necked, wasp-waisted work dress without a coat (Don lends her his)—Joan admires the red-hot curves of an XK-E convertible while Don, a few paces behind, admires the synergy. When he rips off a $6,000 check and drives the convertible off the floor, Joan feels the adrenaline rush attendant with being Don’s mate.
Before two exquisite, sparkling beauties approach him in a bar in the season’s concluding scene, Don broods in his work suit and skinny tie over the loss of his fearless, independent wife—whose self-involved wallowing he can’t understand.
At a meeting of the partners, Don grimaces in his usual skinny tie—but this one has a hint of blue, to match his watery eyes.
For a fraught encounter with Mrs. Pryce—who answers the door not in black for mourning (she abhors “wallowing”) but in a pert brown-and-black tie-necked dress—Don delivers heartfelt condolences in a blue-and-black striped skinny tie.
With no school, Sally Draper takes in the Museum of Natural History with her friend-that’s-a-boy Glen—wearing the white go-go boots that Don banned her from wearing a few episodes back.
In a tragic, sci-fi-tinged scene between Beth (Alexis Bledel) and Pete, she wide-eyedly inquires in her diaphanous, child-like nightgown and robe after his troubles, with no apparent recollection of their tryst just days earlier. Her electroshock therapy has erased her brain—according to her accounts of previous treatments, she’s “lost months.” Beth’s childlike nature is emphasized here and in her wardrobe earlier, when she’s seen in an almost inappropriately young-looking, sailor-collared day dress, which she wore under the pretense of attending her niece’s birthday party (actually a nooner with Pete).
These two, close enough in age to be sisters, gossip about boys over coffee at a diner. Megan wears corduroy and casual stripes, befitting a true gamine; Sally wears a bright blue sweater with her locket.
New partner Joan, in polka dots, looks on at the two most weaselly weasels, Lane and Pete; though she still wears her signature gold secretary pen on a chain, at right, she no longer has to take minutes.
The old-buddy rapport of Peggy (nearly blending into the plush red seats in her burnt-orange knit) and Don is back, thanks to a chance encounter at Don’s favorite cobweb-thwarting haunt, the movies. Their banter starts off friendly and strong, but resolves in a mealy-mouthed affirmation to “get dinner sometime” and the passing of regards to significant others.
Bert investigates the secret bonus check in Don’s office—in a radical sartorial departure from his usual attire. (Just kidding.)
Lane grovels in plaid, while Don—in his shirt sleeves, elevated in a higher chair over Lane’s sunken posture—looks on imperiously.
We’ll never know what Don’s estimation of Megan’s talent really is, but she looks spot-on as the “European type” requested for the Bavarian, Beauty and the Beast–themed shoe commercial; she’s attired in a red-and-yellow dirndl with a wreath of youthful flowers in her hair. She gets beauteous touch-ups from the crew while Don saunters off, bar-ward.
Betty, consoling her daughter (right), wears a pussy-bow blue dress with a full skirt, her signature side part, and dark red nails.
With Betty out of the picture for most of the season—and wearing tent-like housecoats or ski garb when featured—Mrs. Calvet (Julia Ormond) was season five’s stand-in for coiffed-housewife glamour. On an Easter visit to the Drapers’ Upper East Side apartment, she is never without her red lipstick, pearls, and—when leaving the house—her Hermès scarf.
