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I don’t know if I am attracted to films set in the 1960s, or there just happens to be a lot of films set in the 1960s, but recently I have been pondering the costuming success of some of the more popular…

Rachel Menken dressed more for the Ladies Auxiliary than a business meeting

Peggy Olsen - learning to dress for success in season 4

This weekend season 4 of Mad Men returns and as an avid follower of the series (I don’t answer the phone even while a rerun is playing), I am looking forward to Matt Weiner’s take on 1964/65. Even if you don’t love Mad Men you have to admit the art direction is excellent. When it comes to the costuming, Betty Draper and Trudy Campbell are bang on fashion plates. However, despite these two stellar examples, I don’t think the costuming is always perfect: The bust darts on Joan’s dresses rarely relate to the actual location of her breasts (there is a reason buxom women wore sweaters at the time), and sometimes business women, like Rachel Menken, are dressed too cocktailish. Women in the early 60s had to dress seriously to be taken seriously in a man’s world. Chanel suits (and their knock-offs), mid height heels, and plain hats were popular with women who wanted to succeed in business. I have to mention one egregious error that occured in season 2 even though its not the costumer’s fault. A mock-up of a magazine advertisement depicted a stewardess in a mini skirt in 1962 - this would have been impossible since the mini skirt did not exist at the time and I am sure the costumer knew that - but the artist of the mock-up didn’t check. We should be seeing the first examples of mini skirts being worn in the office this upcoming season.

Brigitte Bardot chic and Collegiate looks for 1962 in A Single Man

On the big screen, A Single Man is a small film in the sense that there are no lavish crowd scenes with hundreds of extras. The largest scene involves a few dozen people leaving a college building in Los Angeles, but each of those people is impeccably dressed and groomed for November 30, 1962 (the day upon which the entire film is set). A Single Man was directed by Gucci resuscitater Tom Ford, whose Italian factory tailored the men’s clothes (I hope Colin Firth got to keep his perfectly fitted suits.) The costume designer for the film, Arianne Phillips, is best known for her well deserved costume nomination for Walk The Line. Phillips also costumed a number of films completely different in character from each other including: Tank Girl, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Crow, and 3:10 to Yuma. In A Single Man, Phillips adeptly costumed a number of characters ranging from collegiate types and bad girls (black leather and beehives) to a wannabe Brigitte Bardot beatnik, and an aging socialite. All her work was meticulously correct - maybe too correct to be realistic, and, if I have to find fault, a titch too avant garde (Charley’s evening dress looks more 1965ish than 1962.) Normally it bothers me when a film is costumed in nth degree style, but A Single Man is an excessively stylish film and the costuming underscores the underlying storyline of the lead character’s rediscovery for appreciating life and beauty, and making the most of the present. What else could we have expected from Tom Ford but a film of perfect design from beginning to end.

European youth in the early 1960s

Sister Smile is a Belgian film about the singing nun Jeanine Deckers who became famous for her catchy Catholic hit Dominica. The costumer is unknown to me (I have only ever seen one other Belgian film in my life) but they did a very apt job of capturing a very European early 60s style consisting of duffle coats and tweed skirts. The differences between European and North American styles were still quite discernable at that time, especially with how youth dressed. Again, this is a small film, which worked well because the attention to detail could be put towards the principal actors. The film is set primarily in the early 1960s, but follows the story into the late 1960s, and briefly beyond.

Pirate Radio - set in 1966 - ish

Last, and I am afraid least, is Pirate Radio. This film is set in 1966, at the height of the British invasion of music and fashion, aboard a pirate radio broadcast ship off the coast of England. The BBC, which held a monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK, did not play rock and roll at the time, resulting in pirate radio stations, which received payments from the rock and roll industry to broadcast from international waters. The costumer, Joanna Johnston, is well known for exceptional work in films such as Valkyrie, Munich, and Saving Private Ryan, but this film is not her finest work. Much of what is done is correct but I suspect someone along the way decided it would have more comic value to exaggerate the styles of the pirate radio mop top DJS and their mod Carnaby street girlfriends, from the grey buttoned suits of the British MPs in their Henry Moore sculpture-laden mid-century offices who are trying to stop them. The resulting styling of the radio pirates is a mish mash of everything from Sargeant Pepper to the Partridge Family.

To recap… Mad Men is great but not always perfect - 9/10; A Single Man is perfection, perhaps too much so  - 9.9/10; Soeur Sourire is well done and shows a style not as familiar to North Americans 8/10; Pirate Radio tries too hard for comic relief by overexagerrating period fashions 6/10.

I am a bit behind in my blogging because I took on teaching a course in fashion history at Ryerson University. I have never formally taught a course before, so its a learning experience both ways. Pulling together a 3 hour weekly lecture can be a daunting task; I worry I will forget something or perpetuate a fashion myth and set another generation on the wrong path. But then I remember that university’s most important task is to instill in its graduates the tools to learn and to carry on learning throughout life.

In keeping with that goal, I try to pass on enthusiasm as a hugely important tool for learning; if I get bored, learning becomes a chore. So to keep boredom at bay I like to show my students clips from films that bring the era we are studying to life - especially when its about an era they can’t remember (even though I can!). This week’s topic is the influence of youth on fashion from 1965 - 1995 and I was fortunate enough to find these two really interesting clips from the late 1960s about Carnaby Street and Rudi Gernreich.