If you are a fan of Mad Men, the television drama set in the 1960s now in its sixth season on AMC, then you know that the costume design plays an integral role in each episode. Like every carefully researched and designed historic detail that Mad Men creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner is known for, the Mad Men costumes authentically represent the era, the Zeitgeist, the characters, and the stories Weiner tells.
In an exclusive interview with Savvy Auntie, Janie Bryant, the Emmy® award-winning and Costume Designers Guild award-winning costume designer for Mad Men, reveals how her three aunts (among other family members) have helped inspire her career since she was a little girl growing up in the South. Janie is also a fashion designer, brand ambassador, author, and, notably to us, a proud Savvy Auntie of two nieces and two nephews.
It was Janie’s namesake, her great-aunt Kate - Janie’s full name is Katherine Jane Bryant - who inspired her very first fashion drawings. “As a child, I was always drawing and finger-painting, Janie says. “And after church and the country club on Sunday afternoons, my family would visit my Great-Aunt Kate and Great-Uncle Hallman at their home. I would sit on the sofa with Great-Aunt Kate and just draw with her for hours and hours, just the two of us.” It was at that time, as just age 5, that Janie drew her first female forms, adding fashion designs to the forms.
It wasn’t just the special “QualAuntie Time” that her great-aunt Kate, a flaming red-head, spent with her drawing that inspired Janie. Great-Aunt Kate would let Janie go through her amazing stocking boxes which Janie found inspiring; Great-Aunt Kate always wore foundation garments, in that old-fashioned sort of way that her husband insisted on. And Janie remembers being inspired by her great-aunt’s perfume bottles of which she had so many. And Great-Aunt Kate gave Janie her dinner ring, which Janie has worn it ever since. “It was a pretty special time,” Janie recalls.
Janie’s other namesake is her father’s sister, Janie’s Aunt Jane. “Aunt Jane has always been one of my favorite aunts,” Janie explains. Aunt Jane lives in Mississippi and when the cousins would get together, Aunt Jane would always lead them in the name game and other fun activities. Janie says that her Aunt Jane is one of the funniest people she knows.
Janie Bryant with her Aunt Jane
And then there is Aunt Linda, Janie’s aunt by marriage, whom Janie describes as an “incredible Southern lady” and successful historical romance novelist under the name Lindsey Hanks. At one time, Aunt Linda had a women’s fashion boutique and when she closed the store, she offered Janie some of the vintage pieces she thought she’d like. Aunt Linda also shares lots of family photographs from the Mad Men era that Janie uses for inspiration for her costume design.
But one of her Aunt Linda’s most prescient gifts to Janie was the 1967 wedding gown she wore when she married Janie’s Uncle Billy. Linda offered it to Janie during the hiatus between seasons 5 and 6 of Mad Men. And while Janie had no idea that there would be a wedding scene in the premier episode of season 6, lo-and behold, when she read the script, there was a wedding scene. “I showed Matt the photo of my aunt’s wedding gown and it made it into the episode. It meant so much to me that it was Aunt Linda’s,” Janie recalls.
Janie is not only a proud niece, but also a proud aunt of two nieces and two nephews: Amelia, age 15, Penelope Jane, age 10, Ian Porter, age 7, and Bolen age 4. Janie started a tradition with Amelia that when her nieces and nephews each turn 8, Aunt Janie invites them out to spend solo time with her and her husband in California. It’s their “rite of passage,” she explains. Janie is expecting Amelia and Penelope Jane for a special visit this July.
Janie Bryant with niece Amelia 2003
“I’m not their parent, but I’m still their family, so I have different influence over them,” Janie says of her relationship with her nieces and nephews. The girls, who are older, understand that Janie works in fashion and costume design for the film business. Janie’s niece Amelia got first-hand experience watching Aunt Janie at work, spending a week with on the Mad Men set and meeting the cast during her visit to L.A. at age nine. The girls are proud of their aunt, and showed it when Aunt Janie became a brand ambassador for Maidenform, the undergarment brand featured in the first season of Mad Men, and when her book, The Fashion File (Grand Central Life & Style) was published in 2010.
Janie Bryant with niece Penelope Jane at a Dodgers game
And earlier this year, when Janie was being inducted into the Brenau Alumni Hall of Fame, but could not attend (Janie’s mother Dottie was there to accept the award on her behalf), her influence still ran deep. Amelia was in the audience with her mom, Janie’s sister Laura, and her sister, Penelope Jane and she later revealed that she was so inspired by the experience that she will apply to the university’s early college program. This really touched Janie.
Janie Bryant with niece Penelope Jane at Disney World
I wondered if Janie’s Savvy Auntie-ness inspired her costume design for Megan (née Calvet) played by Jessica Paré. (In a fourth season episode entitled The Beautiful Girls, when Megan is assistant to Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm), she tells Don that she’s good with children because she has “four nieces and six nephews.” This was one of the reasons we think Don chooses to marry Megan over then girlfriend, Dr. Faye Miller, who admits she’s not great with kids. While Janie says that she does not design costumes for Megan that reflect her role as an aunt, in seasons 5 and 6, the new Mrs. Megan Draper and the former Mrs. Betty Draper, now Mrs. Betty Francis, are each costume designed very differently.
Janie's husband, Peter Yozell, Janie and her niece, Amelia
“Before she marries Don,” Janie says, “Megan was the fresh new flower in Don’s life. She was sweet and very young. And now she’s in bolder colors like corals and reds, gold and other metallics, and black, which is very modern and chic. She’s a little European, modern and chic herself, and her costumes reflect that.”
And Betty’s palette is all about cool tones, the opposite of Megan. “I use pale yellows, blues, grays, white, ivory and beige. It’s all about her looking cool and icy,” Janie says. “Betty is all about perfection, always looking perfect. Everything is permanently pressed in every moment of her life. Her costumes represent a façade of perfection, now even more so that she’s a political wife.”
And back to aunthood, Janie says: “I have such love for my aunts. And being an aunt myself, I am always looking for whatever I can do to be there for my nieces and nephews and help them with anything that they need or want.
Penelope Jane with her Aunt Janie
“I hope Amelia will intern with me one day,” Janie says. In the meantime, on their visits, she and her nieces go shopping and do “girlie girl” things together. “It’s always my favorite day,” Janie says.
“I am a lucky girl,” Janie adds.
And we believe your nieces and nephews are very lucky to have you as their aunt, Janie
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To Note:
Fashion editors and bloggers publish their interpretations of the costumes on Mad Men, and their thematic significance, almost as often as entertainment and television editors and bloggers review the episodes. (My favorite is Mad Men fashion reviewers are Tom and Lorenzo, the couple behind TomandLorenzo.com)
Janie Bryant was nominated for a Costume Designers Guild Award for “Outstanding Costume Design for Television Series–Period/Fantasy” in 2005, 2006, and 2007. She was nominated for Emmy® awards in 2004, 2005, and 2007 for “Outstanding Costumes for a Series,” taking home the Emmy in 2005 for her work for Deadwood. She was nominated again for an Emmy for her work on “Mad Men” in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The Costume Designers Guild honored Janie with three consecutive nominations for “Outstanding Costume Design for Television Series – Period/Fantasy,” for her work on “Mad Men.” She won in 2009 and 2010.
Janie’s costumes for Mad Men inspired fashion lines at Banana Republic®, where she has collaborated with Simon Kneen on three seasons of a Banana Republic/Mad Men Collection.
Photos of Janie Bryant, Amelie and Penelope Jane are courtesy Janie Bryant.
Photo of Mad Men characters Betty Francis and Megan Draper are via AMC
Published: June 12, 2013