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"If you&amp;#x27;re as obsessed with Mad Men and its award winning style as I am, you won&amp;#x27;t want to miss our exclusive interview with the show&amp;#x27;s costume designer, Janie Bryant. She spills on what inspires her to dress Betty Draper, how she creates 200 costumes per episode, and where she goes for incredible vintage clothes (the answer may surprise you), after the jump... Bryant is currently up for a Costume Designers Guild Award--winners will be announced February 17--and the fashion industry seems to agree she well deserves it. Michael Kors and Thom Browne have both been inspired by the style she brings to the small screen, and Mad Men mania has swept up more than a few of us here at Glamour--check out why Suze is also totally obsessed, and why I named Betty Draper one of the 9 Best Dressed TV Characters of All Time! Slaves to Fashion chatted with the costume designer extraordinaire this afternoon: Slaves to Fashion: So, do you have the best job in costume design right now or what? Janie Bryant: Hah, yes, I&amp;#x27;m very lucky. You&amp;#x27;re catching me on a good morning, because last night I was at the SAG awards, and I have a little bit of a Champagne hangover&amp;amp;#133;we won so we were all so excited! STF: Were you a fan of late 50s/early 60s fashion before you landed this job, or did you have to do a lot of studying? JB: I was a fashion designer as my first career, and I&amp;amp;#8217;d studied a lot of fashion history, so I have such a love of all periods. I knew more about early early iconic 50s more so than the early 60s, but I just love that period too because it is that time of Camelot and pre-disasters in America and you really get a little glimpse into what that life was all about, before assassinations and before war, just all very pristine and perfect. STF: Matthew Weiner, the show&amp;#x27;s creator, is famously super-attentive to detail. Does that make your job more challenging? JB: It&amp;amp;#8217;s a great thing that Matt and I have the same kind of sensibility, because when I first met Matt we just sat down for two hours and talked about the period, and the design, and not even so much about character but about connecting on a human level and we just liked each other. We have just always been such a great fit, personality wise and aesthetically. We just really clicked together that way. He supplies me with background of character and script, but really relies on me for developing these characters through costume design. It&amp;amp;#8217;s very much a collaborative thing. STF: What&amp;#x27;s the biggest challenge of your job? JB: This is a really hard question! You know, there are so many but I think probably I get very neurotic about the extras, I get obsessed with them, because I want them to look as gorgeous as the principal cast, but there&amp;amp;#8217;s no time to fit 300 costumes on background people. There are so many costumes, with the principal cast for one show I&amp;amp;#8217;ll probably have from 75 to 200 costumes that have to be designed for the day players, and that doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t even count the background actors. STF: Which character is the most fun to dress? JB: It really varies per episode, but Season Two I just had such a great time designing for January Jones. There really is this huge transformation, when she comes to work and I see her in real life, and then see her totally transformed. All of her equestrian stuff, her evening cocktail dresses and gowns, they are just so much fun to create. STF: Where do you draw inspiration for Betty Draper and her wardrobe? JB: My grandmother. My grandmother, her name was Etoille Estelle Lillard, so she was &amp;quot;Double Star Lillard,&amp;quot; which I loved. She was from the South where they couldn&amp;#x27;t really pronounce her name, so they always called her &amp;amp;#8220;Et-oh-lee&amp;amp;#8221; and she was really part of that society. My grandmother, she was an amazing amazing designer and seamstress herself. And she had an apron for every event that matched every dress--she had cocktail aprons and everyday aprons and she designed and built her own clothes and she was just such a lady. And also I would have to say Grace Kelly for Betty Draper as well. Those are really my two main inspirations. STF: How about the Joan Holloway character? I feel like so many women think curvy is sexy again because of Joan and the way she dresses. JB: With Joan, I just see her as such a sassy gal. She just tells it like it is, or rather tells it how she sees it, and that really inspired me to use a lot of strong colors for her in her palette. They&amp;#x27;re so indicative of the period anyway, so it&amp;amp;#8217;s been fun to use mustards and moss greens and the brighter jewel tones. And the great thing about Mad Men is, it&amp;amp;#8217;s not just Joan that has this beautiful hourglass figure, there&amp;amp;#8217;s every single body type represented on that show. It&amp;amp;#8217;s not like there&amp;amp;#8217;s just one image of beauty. There are all different body shapes and sizes. It&amp;amp;#8217;s about embracing your uniqueness instead of self-criticizing. STF: Do you do a lot of vintage shopping for the show, or do you create most of the costumes yourself? Where do you buy your best stuff? JB: I design and build things from scratch for the principal cast and some of the regulars, and things are also shopped. We have great resources for the costume shops in Los Angeles. I love Palace Costume and I love Western Costume. It&amp;#x27;s amazing how much more space you have in L.A. to keep a closet full of vintage clothes than you do in New York! STF: What are your favorite vintage spots in New York and Los Angeles? JB: I love this store called Playclothes in L.A., and I love the owners&amp;amp;#133;her name is Wanda, and she&amp;amp;#8217;s southern, like I am and they are just the greatest people in that place. And through my nine and a half years in New York, my best pieces that I still have were from the Salvation Army on 46th between 11th and 12th. Three times a year they have a fur and leather sale and you can get the most amazing things. Those are definitely my best vintage finds. STF: How can we average gals get the Mad Men style without looking like we&amp;#x27;re wearing a costume? JB: You know what&amp;amp;#8217;s really fun, is to get a great vintage blouse of the period, with some pin tucks or ruffles, and wear them with skinny jeans. I also love twinsets, which are just so iconic for the period, and a pencil skirt is perfect, or also finding a great shirtwaist dress. Definitely if you buy something, a piece from the period, I always say mix it with very contemporary pieces, whether it be a modern shoe or skinny jeans or high waisted trouser jeans. I&amp;amp;#8217;m a strong believer in mixing a lot of pieces. STF: Designers from Michael Kors to Thom Browne have acknowledged that your work on the show has inspired them...um, how does that feel!? JB: Last night I met Anne Hathaway [at the SAG awards] because one of my best friends does her makeup. And I was with January Jones and she said &amp;quot;Oh Anne this is Janie, she does the clothes for Mad Men,&amp;quot; and Anne Hathaway was like, &amp;amp;#8220;How does it feel to be responsible for changing the face of fashion?&amp;amp;#8221; and I was like, &amp;amp;#8220;It feels pretty damn good, thanks Anne!&amp;amp;#8221; It has been incredible, and I&amp;amp;#8217;m just glad that it&amp;amp;#8217;s really touched and inspired so many people. That&amp;amp;#8217;s really the gift. STF: Can we expect to see a line of clothing come out of this, or a collection inspired by the show? What kinds of projects do you have going on for the future? JB: I&amp;amp;#8217;m working on some things right now&amp;amp;#133;I hate to be so mysterious but I can&amp;#x27;t really say! It would have my name attached to it though. I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;m alone here when I say I&amp;#x27;ll be buying it! Do you guys love Mad Men style as much as I do? Are you feeling the whole late 50s fashion vibe? And are you as obsessed with Janie and her incredible creations as I am? Discuss! Photos: Carin Baer/AMC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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