The Fashion File: Advice, Tips, and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men [Hardcover]

Janie Bryant (Author), Monica Corcoran Harel (Author), January Jones (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2010

From Joanie's Marilyn Monroe-esque pencil skirts to Betty's classic Grace Kelly cupcake dresses, the clothes worn by the characters of the phenomenal Mad Men have captivated fans everywhere. Now, women are trading in their khakis for couture and their pumas for pumps. Finally, it's hip to dress well again. Emmy-Award winning costume designer Janie Bryant offers readers a peek into the dressing room of Mad Men, revealing the design process behind the various characters' looks and showing every woman how to find her own leading lady style--whether it's vintage, modern, or bohemian.

Bryant's book will peek into the dressing room of Mad Men and reveal the design process behind the various characters' looks. But it will also help women learn how fashion can help convey their personality. She will help them cultivate their style, including all the details that make a big difference.

Bryant offers advice to ensure that a woman's clothes convey her personality. She covers everything from where to find incredible vintage clothing and accessories to how to pair those authentic pieces with modern shoes and jeans. Readers will learn how to find their perfect bra size, use color to convey a mood, and invest in the ten essentials every woman should own. And just so the ladies don't leave their men behind, there's even a section on making them look a little more Don Draper-dashing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'a peek into the show dressing room...showing every woman how to find her leading lady style' SEW --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Emmy-winning costume designer Janie Bryant creates all of the looks seen on TV's Mad Men. She has worked on numerous films and TV shows. In 2005, she won an Emmy for her period costumes on HBO's Deadwood and she took home the prestigious Outstanding Costume Design award from the Costume Designers Guild in both 2009 and 2010.

Monica Corcoran Harel is a Los Angeles-based style writer who has reported on fashion and the culture of keeping up appearances for InStyle, Variety, Forbes and the Style section of the New York Times. She also consults as a fashion expert for Project Runway.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Life & Style (November 4, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446572713
• ISBN-13: 978-0446572712
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Beauty, Grooming, & Style > Men's Grooming & Style

More About the Author

Emmy-winning costume designer Janie Bryant creates all of the looks seen on TV's Mad Men. She has worked on numerous films and TV shows. In 2005, she won an Emmy for her period costumes on HBO's Deadwood and this year, she took home the prestigious Outstanding Costume Design award from the Costume Designers Guild. Monica Corcoran Harel is a style and culture writer who has reported on fashion, beauty, and celebrity for InStyle, Variety, Forbes, and other magazines, and is a contributor to the Style section of the New York Times and of the Los Angeles Times magazine.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Love the show, love the stylist! November 13, 2010

By lovecoats

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been a fan of Mad Men since episode one. I love seeing the world as it was around the time I was born, when my parents were in their thirties. The tone of the show is largely due to Ms. Bryant's talents.

I've always been a fan of classic & vintage inspired clothes and jewelry & when you add in the wonderful acting & writing on the show, what more could you want!

As a curvy girl, Joan is my hero & watching her has given me more confidence when I dress.

Janie's book is full of good info above & beyond the normal fashion books. My favorite piece of advice in the book is to stand up straight, shoulders back & "be an exclamation point, not a comma". That's the best fashion advice of all time- If I find myself slumping, those words straighten me up & I instantly feel better.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fashion File: The Fashionita Bible November 4, 2010

By A. Kirsch

Format:Hardcover

It should be noted that I have little fashion sense, but I absolutely love reading about fashion, especially its evolution as an art and medium of expression. When I received this book, the first thing I did was flip through it to see just what was covered. I was thrilled to see a survey of fashion from eras not restricted to that of Mad Men.

One of my real favorite things that was covered in this book, and really what was at the heart of the book, was the strong inspirational tone of developing one's personal style. It touched on the idea of colors matching with moods, silhouettes for particular body shapes, and activity/career-minded clothing.

For the fashion lover, this book would serve as a reinforcement of the rules they already know, and for me, it was the perfect primer for a lifetime of likely continued mismatched patterns, but also the added reason for me to continue to appreciate those in my social circle who dress to impress around the clock.

Special thanks to Grand Central for the opportunity!

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Pros and Cons November 28, 2010

By Reviewer

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I went through the book and then felt somewhat like the other reviewer that this book was written mostly for someone else. If you are the type of person that wakes up in the morning and don't know who you are until you put on a particular look, then this book is probably for you. To me, and maybe I missed something here, but to me, this book seems like it is written for someone who lives their life from the outside in. That is to say, they do not know who they are until they establish a certain look through their wardrobe that they select in order to know who they are.

Personally, if I were having someone design clothes for me, I would hire someone who could know about me and what my lifestyle was so they could design a wardrobe around who I was - not fit me into a wardrobe to define who I am for the day. I think the book has some merits already mentioned by some of the other reviewers, but I think this book lacks some of the variation and detail I would have expected. Such as what type of colors and designs around the neckline, shoulderline, waste line, hip line, and so on. I think this is what many women have questions about and many women seek a fashion statement that is mostly their own. While the book brushes the surface of these topics and the body types (straight, apple, pear, hour glass) and so on, it does not give a further examination of the subject and is more about frills and thrills than it is about practical wardrobing. I feel it is written on a level for juveniles and teens or early twenties. Not enough goes into practical work, play, dinner, entertaining, etc., the types of wardrobing that can be dressed up or down. Exploration of color is not even investigated nearly enough.

Now, the thing that makes this book worth while are the beautful illustrations by Robert Best. Robert Best is the Barbie fashion designer and he is also the illustrator that does the Barbie Calendars every year. His beautiful illustrations are more than just fluty garnishes in the book, they make the book's image and shape and statement. The creativity in the fashions are absolutely surpurb and for me, make the book worthwhile, even though all the figures he created are pencil thin and dreamlike without a basis of reality in their form. Even the illustration of "Joan" from Mad Men is devoid of her full curves, thus evaporating the opportunity to go beyond the stereo typical Barbie figure. The illustrations are indeed beautiful and dreamlike models that look like our beloved Barbie - now what fashion saavy woman doesn't like Barbie? There is a small credit statement to Robert's work in the back of the book and a credit statement on the inside front page but I think it could have been far more prominant in the book for the amount of incredible illustration work he did which is almost on every page. His work makes the tone and character of the book. Sorry he didn't get the notariety he was due for all the work he did. His illustrations are magnificant and give character and a great image of the book.

The messege of this book seems to be to break out of your current styles and have some fun with your wardrobe. It has lots of ideas to get people outside of their current mold (such as wearing lavish hats and lacy high heeled shoes) but not enough information to cover practical everyday wear for work, for executives, for recreation, for dining, etc. Robert Best creates the imagination while the author creates the inspiration to break out of the mold and try something provocative, frivilous, and daring.

The repeating idea in the book is that you don't know who you are until you put on that special wardrobe so you can be "somebody" special that you want to be for that day. So I missed the point of the book I guess. I was looking for a book that could put the fashion around me, a style that could express a bit of who I am, not prop me up into the fashion clothes for the day to define myself. This is where the rub kept occuring for me. Many of the suggestions are overstated and full of glam. Great to look at but hardly practical. I did learn a few things and although I wouldn't take the same approach as the book, I did get some ideas which I can certainly use as a basic idea to tweak towards my own objectives. Since the author's experience is dressing up actors and actresses for their shooting, I can understand completely her approach. But for the rest of society, it is a bit brief and not very practical. Great if you are still searching out who you are and need a fashion statement to get you out of a wardrobe funk. It seems to me that the premise is to awaken your inspiration and get out there and do something different.

That being said, the book is beautiful and fun, very girly, and great conversation book to have on the coffee table or nearby for those girly guests at tea time or to add to a collection of fashion illustration books. Robert Best's illustrations and interviews with the actresses make it worth it for me.