Mad Men Costume Designer Janie Bryant’s Top 5 Favorite Looks from All Seven Seasons

No Don but little Sally Draper gets a spot on her list

By Cinya Burton Mar 24, 2015 11:35 PMTags
Mad Men Season 7Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC

It's the end of an era, folks!

For seven glorious seasons we've watched as the men and women of Sterling Cooper advertising agency (now Sterling Cooper & Partners) navigated their way through the 1960s and now that time is coming to a close—literally, Don and friends have reached the 70s.

But before we say goodbye to the free-love decade and our favorite scotch-sipping characters, we just had to sit down with the Emmy-winning drama's costume designer Janie Bryant before the finale season (airing on AMC, April 5).

Bryant has already moved on to her next project—a new shoe collection—but was more than happy to take one final stylish stroll down memory lane. So we asked her the ultimate question: What are her top five favorite looks from Mad Men? And although she was game (see below) she did add: "It's really hard to pick five because I have 500 for sure." Us too, Janie. Us too.  

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5. Sally Draper: "I love this costume because it shows such an amazing transition in Sally Draper's character and Kiernan [Shipka] just looks so amazing, so sweet and so grown up. I really love those moments in the show when we really get to see the transition of a character and also time passing."

Jaimie Truebood/AMC

4. Peggy Olson: "We see Peggy really develop into this amazing, incredible businesswoman. I remember reading that script and envisioning ‘Oh God, she has to wear pants for this scene, she has to wear pants for this scene...'" shared Janie, adding: "We feel strong in pants, we can do anything in pants."

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3. Joan Holloway: "I always think that Joan is the epitome of femininity. I love designing for the character and this dress is a really important dress because she wears it to the Christmas party, doing the conga line. Matt [Weiner] really loved this dress because of the red bows and it just really said Christmas. And also, she was the leader in the conga line too. I think it's just so fun and expressive of what was happening in the offices in that period. I don't know if we'd see a conga line today in an office… maybe."

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2. Betty Draper: "This is really special costume for me.  It has such sentimental value because it's Betty….and Betty wore this costume in season one and it was actually the first costume that I designed from scratch." 

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1. Megan Draper: "I love that dress. I love everything about that dress. I love that she is so chic in that scene, she's singing and dancing. I love the movement of the sleeves, I love the simplicity of like the little black mini dress. And also, that is the first mini dress that we ever, ever see on Mad Men. So, it has also like this big fashion moment."

For more details on Bryant's favorite looks—including why Kiernan is her "style hero"—watch the full interview below. 

Watch: Top 5 "Mad Men" Fashionable Looks Ever!