Liz Smith: ‘Mad Men’ Designers – It’s All About ‘Shapewear’!

“But the real story is Red State America’s repressed obsession with sex that lashes out at any departure from an Ozzie and Harriet dream world at the same time it forces the desires of its own representatives into the shattering contortions entailed by the closet.”

This is from one of the best spy thriller novels I’ve ever read. Banquo’s Ghosts was written in 2009 by Rich Lowry and Keith Korman for Vanguard Press. I don’t know these guys but what have they done for us lately. Hey, fellas, how about a new book?

I’ll be using more quotes from Banquo’s Ghosts in the future.

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How does the costume designer for TV’s hit Mad Men keep her forces in line and stop them from stepping out of the ’60s fashion orbit?

Janie Bryant, the show’s designer, tells reporter Catherine Elsworth that she bans her actresses from working out. She doesn’t want their bodies to appear muscular; most women didn’t work out in those days.

The actresses also wear “shapewear” girdles and longline bras, which have a slight resemblance to a corset. Bryant aims for the hourglass figure look.

Mad Men has caused fashionistas to “lust after this season’s Prada wool coats with nipped-in waists, or full skirts and cleavage-boosting bodies inspired by Lous Vuitton’s styles of the 1950s.” Bryant is assisted by a staff of nine people who comb the local flea markets in L.A. She even incorporated her own mother’s wedding dress in a scene where Roger Sterling’s daughter marries.

Key to all this is the big success of actress Christina Hendricks as the super secretary office manager Joan Holloway. Her undies are all originals from the ’60s period. Christina says she has “war wounds” from wearing this arduous underwear and often has pads of moleskin inserted to cushion her skin.

But costumer Bryant is devoted to her new finds of old things: “I love a longline bra because it totally smoothes the back and it’s seamless. It’s quite a piece of engineering. I also love the way it really does manipulate the shape of the breast. I’m obsessed with intimate apparel.”

Bryant is devoted to “my girls – Hendricks, January Jones and Elisabeth Moss.” She is about to release a book and has designed her first collection, Janie Bryant MOD, described as “a capsule line of statement pieces all about glamour and elegance and beauty and largely inspired by the ’50s and ’60s. Her book, The Fashion File, is coming from Apple Press on October 25.

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MY good friend Peter Bart, once the head of Variety and still doing his good work, tells me that the Academy Awards are in better shape than other Hollywood constituencies. Ratings were up 14 percent last year and 41.3 million people tuned in, the highest viewership since 2005. The newly installed Governors Awards dinner was also a major success.

He adds that while the Academy always faces tough choices, prexy Tom Sherak is respected, diplomatic and “understands how to move an organization forward despite its instinctive resistance to moving in any direction at all.”

The Oscars may well be moved up in date come 2012. It’s too late for the next one, 2011, which will happen February 27. This date makes Oscar seem anticlimactic as there are other awards orgies like the Golden Globes, slated for January 16.

Will voters for 2012 be allowed to see movies online? This would increase the piracy paranoia of distributors. Balloting might take place online. Then there is the problem of 3-D. Voters won’t like to see a movie such as a future “Avatar” online.

Early birds are already saying The Social Network will take home the prize in 2011. But Peter Bart, in his wisdom, doesn’t intend to rush things.

Liz Smith’s column can be read in its entirety at Wowowow and is excerpted here under an agreement between Mediaite and Wowowow.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.