Mad Men Rewind

My friend Liana has finally gotten around to watching Mad Men (and is of course loving it) and after chatting with her about the show I was inspired to watch the 1st season again. There are so many layers to the show and to each of the characters, their hidden dreams and desires, that every time I view an episode, I see something new in it. And, after seeing Janie Bryant's Icons of Style exhibition at Chatswood Chase a couple of weeks ago (where Liana and I saw some of the costumes from the series up close and personal) I marvelled again at the brilliant costumes, so true to the period, and to each of the character's individual worlds.
The lovely 50s style floral dress that Betty wears when we are introduced to her in the second episode of the series was included in the exhibition. With it's wide blue cummerbund, it reminds me a bit of my own wedding dress.
Here are a few of my other favourites from Season 1 ...

Many of Betty's looks in season 1 are still very 1950s in flavour. After all, it is 1960s, and as a housewife in the suburbs, she'd no longer be on the cutting edge of fashion as she would have been working as a model in Manhattan. Having said that, she's always so put together that she's almost doll like, even in her house clothes. This one is one of my favourites of her house dresses.

I love the scene where she shows off some of her old outfits from her modelling days in Italy to Francine. This one is very, very cool and probably would have had Don in paroxysms of anger if she'd try to walk out of the house in it.

And this frock, which serves to show how out of touch Betty is with the modelling world of her past (she's at a casting call and check out the other would be models beside her), is quite simply breathtaking.

Joan wears so many great frocks but this - with it's very 60s op art like print - is my favourite from Season 1. Very arresting.

I love the character of Rachel Menken. She's a successful intelligent woman, ahead of her time, and one of the few characters in Mad Men with a working moral compass. I love her break-up scene with Don where she finally calls him out for being a fraud. You don't want to run away with me, you just want to run away.
As the manager of a high end department store, she's always very well turned out, and I particularly like the gorgeous pink suit with the matching hat she wears to a meeting at Stirling Cooper (are those ostrich feathers maybe?) and the blue nightgown she's wearing when a desperate Don turns up on her doorstep. There is no way I look that glamorous when I'm heading to bed, much to my husband's dismay. In my case it's over sized flannelette's all the way.
Do you have any favourites?