Another sweater to add to the collection........

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem right?

Mary McFadden Fall 1985 Fashion Show

That ‘Mad Men’ Look? It’s Vintage Janie Bryant

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By STEPHEN HEYMAN

| November 8, 2010, 5:39 pm

Janie Bryant was having trouble focusing. As the costume director of “Mad Men,” she’s been in the spotlight before, but last month, when she was in town to promote her first book and receive a giant award for her work from Fashion Group International, she was really spinning.

“I just met Pierre Cardin!” she gushed. Like Bryant, Cardin was also in town that week to promote a book, and he, too, was honored at the Fashion Group International ceremony. So it was an extra coincidence that the first item Bryant seized upon when she met up with The Moment for a shopping trip at the Manhattan vintage emporium Family Jewels happened to be a red plaid sport coat with a lapel as wide as a Buick made by Pierre Cardin. “Isn’t it amazing?” she said, slipping it on her bespectacled boyfriend. Moments later, Bryant was deep into the shop’s collection of antique lingerie. “Look at those peignoirs,” she said. “The detail on them. And the terrible nylon! They were so tough to sleep in, but then, that wasn’t the point.”

It has been said before, but “Mad Men,” more than most other shows, relies on the storytelling power of clothes, particularly the ability of fashion to reflect — if not induce — changing attitudes in society. The appearance of modish short skirts in the premiere of the show’s fourth season immediately telegraphs a jump in time: the 1960s have begun to swing. Bryant’s work not only evokes these periods, it also has helped spur a craze of midcentury appropriation, at the high end (bespoke suits, say, or Michael Kors’s fall 2008 runway show) and the low, or low-ish, end (Banana Republic licensing). “People were sort of at a loss for how to dress up,” said Bryant, explaining the wide appeal of the show’s style.

Dressing up was a childhood obsession for Bryant, as she recounts at length in her new book, “The Fashion File” (Grand Central, $26.99). “Shortly after learning to walk, I marched my way into my mother’s childhood bedroom closet — at my grandmother’s house — and became a gleeful two-foot-tall mannequin for her 1950’s dresses, hats, and shoes,” she writes. “In my small town of Cleveland, Tennessee, my obsession with vintage blossomed into an eccentric public spectacle. My tastes ran to full circle skirts from the 1950s, 1940s peplum jackets and hand-sewn collars and bows from antique textiles.” She still taps into her grandmother’s vintage trove, as in Season 3, when John Slattery’s character, Roger Sterling, gave away his daughter in Bryant’s grandmother’s wedding gown.

Bryant’s voice retains a twinge of Tennessee, but she split after graduating from Cleveland High School — where, she writes, her older sister “called me Miss Vogue as I sashayed down the hallways” — and studied fashion design in Atlanta before heading to Paris. “I wanted to learn French and become a designer,” she said. “But I ended up going to the Les Bains Douches and drinking wine.” It wasn’t until she met a costume designer at a party that she found her calling. Before the “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner hired her, she made her mark on “Deadwood,” winning an Emmy Award for her costume designs in 2005. Between the show’s hiatuses, she’s managed to write the book and create her first fashion line, Janie Bryant Mod, which retails on QVC. There’s more to come. As she puts it, “You have no idea how ambitious I am.”

Vain Glorious | Revlon’s Fire & Ice

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By HOLLY SIEGEL

| November 10, 2010, 1:48 pm

In Revlon’s 1952 ad for the Fire & Ice Collection, Richard Avedon shot model-of-the-moment Dorian Leigh in a sparkling silver gown framed by an amorphous tuft of red fabric (a copy of a Balenciaga cape), her hands drawing attention to her blood-colored manicure and lipstick. One of the most indelible ads in fashion history, the image was part of a niche campaign that included a Peggy Olsen-worthy tagline — “Are you made for Fire and Ice?” — and a bizarre questionnaire that asked, ‘Have you ever wanted to wear an ankle bracelet?’ and ‘Does gypsy music make you sad?’ While a lot has changed since 1952, Fire & Ice has a new shelf life now that Revlon has re-released three “lip-and-tip” pairings ($4.79 – $ 8.99). The ad restages the original, with a few notable exceptions — the actress Jessica Biel stands in for Leigh, ankle bracelets are so last century, and that dress is no knockoff.

Now then. I have my own little tidbit to add to this story.

So of course as soon as I heard about this collection I rush over the Revlon website, hoping to come across some additional info that might help me track this collection down. I see that they have a live chat option, so I proceed to ask one of their reps which stores in my area would be carrying this. She says she can't give me specific stores to go to but says that Walmart in my area is carrying the collection. How she knew what "my area" was since I didn't give her a zip code I know not, but whatevs. I proceed to throw some clothes on and zip on down to hell aka Walmart. It's nowhere to be seen. I talk to 3 employees who know NOTHING about the collection. And these are employees who are regularly in the cosmetic section. I go home empty handed and disappointed. I get back on the Revlon website to chat with a rep again to tell them what happened and the same rep says, "You should look at Target and Walgreens too." WHY DIDN'T SHE TELL ME THAT BEFORE?! She made it sound like Walmart was the only retailer carrying it. Why did she mention Walmart before the others? So I asked her if those were the only retailers in the US carrying the collection. She said,"almost all drugstores carry Revlon products." I KNOW THAT YOU STUPID *****! I don't live under a freaking rock! UGH! I'm asking about THIS specific collection. Not Revlon in general.

Long story short, if you can't find this in your area, don't turn to the Revlon people for help. They'll only give you the runaround.