Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant has become as big a star as the show itself. She talks about her inspiration, working with Matthew Weiner and life beyond the show.
BY Catherine Elsworth | 10 October 2010
Costume designer Janie Bryant
She is the reason high-street stores from Debenhams to Zara are currently crammed with fitted sheaths and floral print cinched waist dresses, plaid capes and calf-length pencil skirts, not to mention leopard print kitten heels and structured ladylike handbags with shoes to match.
She is also responsible, at least in part, for what in fashion terms surely counts as a revolution - the apparent return to favour of a more womanly silhouette after the decades-long reign of the androgynous size zero.
And how has she done this? If you've not already guessed, Bryant is the costume designer for Mad Men, the phenomenally successful 1960s advertising industry-set television show whose influence on contemporary style is hard to overstate.
Since its debut in 2007, the cult hit's lovingly crafted period aesthetic has become something of an obsession for television viewers, bloggers, the fashion industry, even politicians (witness equalities minister Lynne Featherstone hailing Mad Men's voluptuous Christina Hendricks the ideal role model for young girls earlier this year). And while Mad Men-inspired designs have been cropping up on catwalks for several years, this season its signature shapes and silhouettes are impossible to avoid.
"Well, it's amazing," says Bryant with a laugh when asked about her - and the show's - influence. "It's an honour. It's flattering. My background is in fashion design and that was really my first career so I think it's interesting to have my path come full circle. That has been gratifying. And also it's been amazing that the fashion community has been so interested in, and inspired by, the show."
Mainly, however, Bryant, a vintage fanatic with a particular fondness for period lingerie, is just thrilled that "dressing up" is back in vogue. She also relishes the impact Mad Men has had on menswear, traditionally more resistant to change, in the return of the "very tailored, streamlined and minimal look" as modelled by the show's beloved anti-hero Don Draper.
Not since Patricia Field, the Sex and the City stylist who inspired a generation of women to splurge on sky-high Manolo Blahniks has a TV costume designer wielded such influence over our wardrobes. Indeed Mad Men has also given birth to a new fashion shorthand denoting body type and style; magazines now ask "are you a 'Betty' or a 'Joan'?", a reference to the contrasting characters portrayed by January Jones and Hendricks.
Bryant, who previously won an Emmy for her work on the 1870s-set Western series Deadwood starring Ian McShane, got the Mad Men job after an intense two-hour meeting with the show's famously perfectionist creator, former Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner. "I had brought research from the mid to late 50s because the first season started in 1960 and he said, 'this is perfect, this is exactly know what I was thinking'. So we just really connected on that level."
That creative synergy between two exacting personalities has resulted in some of television's most complex and fully realised characters - men and women whose exquisite exteriors belie oceans of inner turmoil. Weiner has described Bryant as as much a storyteller as costume designer - her designs can communicate as much about character as the show's minimalist script. They have also inspired dialogue.
When Bryant showed Weiner the Christmas party dress Joan wears in the fourth series, a red number with bows, he wrote a line in which Roger Sterling tells Joan the dress "makes you look like a present".
The pair can also disagree. Weiner, whose attention to detail includes barring his leading actresses from working out lest their bodies appear anachronistically muscly, disliked a lace maternity dress Bryant made Betty for a scene with her future husband Henry Francis.
"He really did not want her to wear lace; he sees lace as grandmotherly," Bryant recalls. "But I was like, 'no it's not, it's beautiful, it's romantic, it's going to be perfect for the scene'. And he called me at home that night, it was so late, and he said, 'Janie, just tell me it's going to be great.' And I'm like, 'Matt, it is going to be great!' And he came to set that morning and I just remember him texting me, 'January looks beautiful. Thank you'. Thank God, because it was the only dress that I'd made for her for that scene. That was funny. But yeah, there is a lot of trust."
For inspiration Bryant looks to old catalogues, vintage Vogues and Good Housekeeping, family albums, period adverts and fabric swatches. To develop the distinct signature style of each character, she began by building "visual boards", a collection of colours and textures that would inform their "palates".
For Betty's ladylike poise and glacial glamour, a classic Grace Kelly-inspired look, Bryant looked to paler colours and more delicate fabrics; jewel tones capture the supercharged sensuality of Joan's tightly-sheathed bombshell form - "it's all about commanding colours and accentuating the assets"; muted browns and mustards feature in the buttoned up, often schoolgirl-like look of Peggy (played by Elisabeth Moss).
The show's wardrobe is a combination of original designs, vintage items and outfits rented from costume houses. Bryant, who has a staff of nine to assist her, often combs local flea markets for finds - she picked up Joan's pencil necklace at one in nearby Pasadena. She's even incorporated family heirlooms such as her mother's wedding gown, which was worn by Sterling's daughter, and engagement dress, which Joan's flat mate was wearing when she made a pass at her.
Bryant's favourite outfits include Betty's current Jackie Kennedy-style ensembles and "all her party dresses", especially "what I call the sad clown dress", the polka dot dress Betty wears for days straight after an unsettling confrontation with Don.
Bryant, who grew up in a small Tennessee town, says she learned about the Mad Men period from her grandparents who "really lived that lifestyle". Her grandmother, who she calls "my true style icon", was "the immaculate hostess", an accomplished seamstress with perfect hair. Her grandfather, who owned a textile mill, was similarly "immaculately attired and definitely had the three-martini lunches and cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes.
"I was always going into the picture drawer to look at all their old photos and see how beautiful they were," recalls Bryant, who admits to being "obsessed with fashion" from an early age. She began trying on her mother's high heels when she was five, made her first dress at eight and would "change my clothes from three to five times a day". (She admits she sometimes still does).
She studied fashion design and worked for the designer John Scher in New York before moving into costume design. "I was always obsessed with looking at the costumes in old movies and spent so much of my childhood doing that and dressing up that it was the perfect fit for me."
The first inkling of the Mad Men style phenomenon came in a phone call from Weiner Bryant received shortly after the show's launch. It was before Michael Kors unveiled his 2008 Mad Men-inspired collection, before Brookes Brothers released a limited edition Mad Men suit (which Bryant helped design) and before US chains like Banana Republic started filling their windows with Mad Men-themed displays.
"Matt called me and said, 'Janie, my friend just called me from San Francisco and said that they just passed by a Don Draper and a Pete Campbell for Halloween!" I was like, 'okay. If it's starting to be Halloween get-ups, then it might become a huge fashion trend.' And every single year it's just grown and grown and grown and grown."
Mad Men's influence extends beyond the clothes - it has been credited with encouraging the return of curves. The Marilyn Monroe-esque Hendricks is seen as the key player in this shift. A new icon, she is suddenly everywhere, with magazines obsessing over her hour-glass form and fashion lines like London Fog and Ports 1961 rushing to sign her up.
Cosmopolitan recently claimed more young women would rather look like Hendricks, a reported size 14, than Kate Moss. Meanwhile, recent catwalk shows have featured increasing numbers of curvier models such as Lara Stone and Crystal Renn. As New York personal stylist Karyn Starr puts it: "If you're going to make more form-fitting clothes and you want to show they're form-fitting, you do need a little bit more of a form,"
Bryant says she finds it "crazy" that for so long the "classic hourglass silhouette" has been rejected in favour of the waif. "Especially since practically every single woman has that shape in whatever size. That is the ultimate of beauty."
Of course the perfectly sculpted silhouettes on Mad Men could not exist without the vital "shapewear", the sculpting, boosting and restraining undergarments of the period.
"I love a long line bra because it totally smoothes the back and it's seamless," says Bryant, who would like them to come back into fashion. "It's quite a piece of engineering. I also love the way it really does manipulate the shape of the breast. I'm obsessed with intimate apparel."
All the actresses except Hendricks wear reproduction vintage bras - hers are originals from the period - as well as girdles, garters, full panties and slips. I ask Bryant about comments Hendricks has made about the "war wounds" she has sustained from her period underwear.
"I know, bless her heart, she's a real trooper. But the thing is all the actresses know, and the actors too, that it's all about that transformation into the period so it's such an important part of the creative process. And that's my job as costume designer, for that transformation to happen through costume." In fact, Hendricks now announces, "I love my bra. I love my girdle," when she comes into Bryant's fitting room.
That's not to say Bryant ignores the discomfort - she is close to the cast -"we really love each other a lot" - and particularly gushing about Jones, Hendricks and Moss: "Aren't they lovely? My girls. I love them so much." So if there's a sore spot or whatever from the garter or the strap my costumers will try to help them with a little pad of moleskin or other ways we can make it a little more comfortable."
Bryant is now stepping out from behind the scenes of Mad Men into a more visible role. She has just designed her first collection, Janie Bryant MOD, a capsule line of "statement pieces" all about "glamour and elegance and beauty" and largely inspired by the 50s and 60s. The line includes a reversible swing coat and faux fur capelet you can just picture Joan wearing. She has been promoting underwear for Maidenform, is working on a line of nail polishes drawn from Mad Men era colours, and next month releases her first book, The Fashion File: Advice, tips and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men.
As to the show's future, Bryant says she has "no idea" how long it will continue and can't tell us if we'll be seeing Joan or Peggy in a mini-skirt any time soon. "We will wait and see."
But Bryant's influence is unlikely to fade even when Mad Men reaches its end. She's already thinking of another period she would love to bring to life, "be it in a movie or TV show. The 1940s could be great. I love the 30s, too. There are so many periods I'm obsessed with. There's something amazing in every decade."
*The Fashion File by Janie Bryant is published 25 October by Apple Press, priced £16.99. Mad Men continues on Wednesdays, 10pm, on BBC Four
