Brooks Bros. dapper Draper caper: Selling limited 'Mad Men' suits

You may never know what it's like to walk a mile in Don Draper's shoes, but come Monday you'll have a chance to don a sharp-looking sharkskin suit inspired by the "Mad Men" ad men played by Jon Hamm (Draper) and John Slattery (Roger Sterling) -- and designed by the show's costume designer, Janie Bryant.

Brooks Bros., which has worked with Bryant to provide authentic-looking threads for the denizens of Sterling Cooper since the AMC show's first season in 2007, announced today that it will sell just 250 of the "Mad Men Edition" suits, designed by the Emmy-nominated, Costume Designers Guild Award-winning Bryant, inspired by the tailored wardrobe of both characters and based on a two-button suit silhouette the storied clothier introduced in 1961.

The medium gray (they call it static gray) sharkskin suit, which has a noticeably trim silhouette, narrower notch lapels, diagonal pockets and side vents will boast a commemorative "Mad Men Edition" label and retail for $998.

Our favorite touch -- not to mention a nod to the time when a man's suit came from the same time zone as he did -- is where they were made: right here in the USA, at the Brooks-owned Southwick factory in Haverhill, Mass.

Brooks is throwing an invite-only bash to celebrate the collaboration at its Madison Avenue flagship tonight, and next week "Mad Men"-themed window displays -- incorporating original costumes from the series -- will be unveiled there and at the Rodeo Drive store in Beverly Hills.

The suits will be sold online at brooksbrothers.com and locally at the Rodeo Drive and South Coast Plaza stores from Oct. 19 through Nov. 8 (the date the season finale airs).

And remember, just because you can now dress in Draper's duds, don't think you can get away with chain smoking, drinking to excess and crashing on the office couch.

-- Adam Tschorn

Photo: Brooks Bros.' limited "Mad Men Edition" suit, which goes on sale Oct. 19. Only 250 will be sold, at $998 each. Credit: Brooks Brothers.

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Capes, caps, and Capulets: Raid the racks at LA Opera costume shop for Halloween

Just in time for Halloween, LA Opera has decided to hold its first costume sale, saying sayonara to 24 years of accumulated gowns, capes, headgear and masks -- some 2,500 pieces in all -- in a one-day sale at the parking lot of its Alameda Street costume shop.

The second I heard the news, I called the Opera's director of communications, Gary Murphy, to wheedle my way into the warehouse for a sneak preview -- figuring that given the size range of opera singers (which Murphy describes as "from robust Wagnerians to petite Mozartians") there had to be something that would look classy cloaking my own robust Wagnerian frame this All Hallow's Eve.

So I popped down to the costume shop this morning expecting to find some kooky costumes and cool hats (which I most certainly did) but was  wholly unprepared for the mind-boggling range of pieces, from $2 scarves to a blue and green hooded cloak designed by Maurice Sendak (perfect for the jet-setting Jedi Knight in your life) for the 1990 production of "Idomeneo" to an extraordinarily beautiful white dress with intricate black and white brocade work hidden in the folds (worn by the Anna Glawari character in "The Merry Widow"), each with a $2,500 price tag.

Events: 'Gossip Girl' fashion guru Eric Daman hosts a dinner with Charlotte Russe

"Gossip Girl" costume designer Eric Daman co-hosted an intimate dinner last night with teen retailer Charlotte Russe in West Hollywood. The occasion? Introduce the local fashion press to the retailer's increasingly fashion-forward assortment of clothes and accessories.

When guests entered the private dining room at the Gordon Ramsey restaurant at the London Hotel, they found themselves face-to-face with mannequins dolled up in chic, sequined party looks -- Daman-styled ensembles used in the company's holiday campaign -- and tables festooned with a huge array of glittering, colorful costume jewelry.

Even the most "over it" style writers found themselves cooing over the "Dynasty"-worthy earrings, long, messy strands of pearls, chunky, silver-toned chains, studded leather-like cuffs and over-the-top cocktail rings. "The jewelry is ridiculous," noted Daman, "and the price is, like, two-for-$8. No zeros in it."

The costumer designer and stylist, who worked under queen bee costumer Patricia Field on "Sex and the City" (he even won an Emmy for his efforts), has been a style consultant with the San Diego-based company for the last year -- a collaboration he finds especially fitting because "I grew up in the mall culture [in rural Michigan], and I understand seeing things on TV and other places that were unattainable," he said, adding: "The fashion on 'Gossip Girl' was getting a lot of publicity, and I kept putting it out there that I thought it was important that people at home be able to dress like this. And Charlotte Russe heard me in interviews and thought it sounded perfect for them. They were trying to up their fashion."

Mission accomplished.

--Emili Vesilind

Photo: An item from the Charlotte Russe collection. Credit: Charlotte Russe

Turner Classic Movies' favorite fashion films

Enlisting the expertise of designers Todd Oldham and Manolo Blahnik, Turner Classic Movies has compiled a list of its favorite fashion films. I agree largely with their choices, but might have added "Gilda" (1946), which I watched over the weekend. Those Jean-Louis gowns that Rita Hayworth wears are ravishing. Or maybe it's just Hayworth who is ravishing. Here are TCM's choices:

"Pandora’s Box" (1929) – Louise Brooks once said, “A well dressed woman, even though her purse is painfully empty, can conquer the world.”  That could have been the motto of Lulu, the role that made her a fashion icon for the ages.  Brooks had been wearing her famous Buster Brown haircut and dressing in the height of flapper fashion for years, as had many other actresses, but her sleek hairdo and half-naked beaded gowns were a perfect match for the amoral charmer in "Pandora’s Box."  In many countries, the severe black bob is still referred to as “the Lulu.” 

"Letty Lynton" (1932) – Joan Crawford and the designer Adrian were a match made in fashion heaven.  The young designer’s work on this 1932 romance about a woman fleeing a disastrous love affair showed Hollywood just how much influence it had on the way women dressed.  For Crawford, Adrian created a no-nonsense look that, while maintaining her femininity, accentuated her athletic shoulders.  Letty’s white organdy dress with shoulder ruffles was copied and sold to more than a million women.  And the broad-shouldered power suits Adrian designed for Crawford created a national rage for shoulder pads.  Little wonder Edith Head once called Letty Lynton the greatest influence on fashion in film history.

Fashion Diary: Berzerk for Cirque

Gossip, first impressions, trends in the making, celebrities and style setters. A regular feature by fashion critic Booth Moore.

If you haven't gone to see Cirque Berzerk's "Beneath," do it now! The production, which runs through Aug. 9 at Los Angeles State Historic Park, is a collision of subcultures, a visual feast of cabaret-burlesque-neo-Goth under a big top in the menacing shadow of the downtown skyline. It wasn't only the acts that were impressive (the vert ramp-inspired trampoline guys are unforgettable), or the subte political message, it was the style. "Beneath" had the feel of a John Galliano runway show. 

First performed at Burning Man in 2004, the production was conceived by producer and co-creator Suzanne Bernel; her husband, composer/co-creator Kevin Bourque; and choreographer Neal Everett. Costume designer Heather Goodman, who lives in Long Beach, only had a couple of months to outfit the 25 players. Kevin Bourque plays the ringmaster. "I took the shirt and full-front pants Kevin was wearing in years past and turned it up," Goodman said on the phone this week. "I designed a kooky jacket with mismatched gold brass buttons."

Fashion Diary: Costume design gets its due at UCLA

Gossip, first impressions, trends in the making, celebrities and style setters. A regular feature by fashion critic Booth Moore.

I’ve always thought that L.A.’s fine arts and academic institutions should do more to promote and preserve Hollywood costume design, which is as much a part of our cultural history as anything that happened on 7th Avenue. And this week, UCLA took a huge step in the right direction by naming Deborah Nadoolman Landis the first David C. Copley Chair for the study of costume design at the School of Theater, Film and Television.

An Academy Award-nominated costume designer, Landis’ credits include "The Blues Brothers," "Animal House," "Coming to America," "Thriller" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Her husband is director John Landis.) She is a past president of the Costume Designers Guild, a teacher and an author, most recently of "Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design" (HarperCollins).

Landis is going to be a busy woman in the coming months. In addition to her new post, which is being endowed by San Diego Union-Tribune publisher David C. Copley, she’s curating the upcoming exhibit "Icons: A Hundred Years of Hollywood Costume Design," opening in 2012 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

We chatted for a few minutes on Tuesday about her future plans for the Copley Center.

How did you score this post?

I met David Copley because he has a huge collection of motion picture costume illustrations. I went down to his house and was overwhelmed! He has Cecil Beaton’s original sketches for "My Fair Lady," Jean Louis’ sketches for "A Star is Born," I could read the walls like Egypt. At the time, I was working "Dressed" and it was already at HarperCollins. But when I saw Beaton’s original sketch of Audrey Hepburn in the Ascot dress, I had to have it in my book. He lent me the sketch, and then we spent some time together at Cannes.

At the same time, I had been talking to Robert Rosen, who is the dean at the UCLA school about a chair in costume design. We wrote a proposal and I never thought it would be funded, but David has a profound appreciation for the role costume plays in our imagination and I couldn’t be happier.

'Mad Men' costume designer to launch fashion line. Are you a Betty or a Joan?

When the admen -- and Peggy -- on " Mad Men" defined women as types for a Maidenform campaign, they branded them as a "Marilyn" (Monroe, natch) or a "Jackie" (as in O). Well, word has it over at Glamour.com that the show's brilliant costume designer, Janie Bryant, is in talks to launch her own fashion line, and so the question is: "Are you a Betty or a Joan?"

I talked to Bryant last July, and here's a taste of her personal taste in a style profile. She's meticulous about researching the looks of the '60s for "Mad Men," right down to sewing special undergarments for the ladies and men that are absolutely true to the period. (In fact, Christina Hendricks told me that that they are incredibly uncomfortable. Read more here.)

No doubt, Bryant will adapt the retro looks she creates for the show. I'm anticipating sexy pencil skirts, sweater sets and vintage-inspired dresses that have been updated just enough to feel modern and classic. Will she design for men? I can't help but wonder. I think guys would buy into the idea of inhabiting a character like the Madison Avenue scamp by wearing a slim-cut suit and skinny tie. Those high-waisted gabardine pants that Don Draper favors might be a tougher sell.

Are you a Betty or a Joan, and who's sexier? Men, weigh in too.

-- Monica Corcoran

Photos: AMCTV.com

Costume design: The foundations

The somber black priests' robes and nuns' habits in “Doubt,” the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize- winning play about the clash between the forward-thinking Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the iron-fisted principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) in a 1964 Catholic school, might not seem a likely place to find artistry in costume design. But, in the course of researching a piece about costumes in Oscar contender films that ran in the Image section Sunday, I discovered that these garments are the very foundation of this compelling story.

Costume designer Ann Roth hand-sewed each black habit as the nuns would have. The stiff black bonnets block out peripheral vision, mirroring Sister Aloysius’ blind justice. Putting on the layers in the morning was as much a rite as any liturgical one. (Incidentally, the habits were phased out in the late 1960s.) 

Naturally, since priests have the upper hand in this religious hierarchy, their robes are not as restraining. Father Flynn gets to wear colorful, embroidered vestments on Sundays and chooses to express himself by keeping his fingernails long, which irks Sister Aloysius. When she has him in her claws, she reprimands him like a child.

The parishioners are beautifully cast in an autumnal palette that helps establish the melancholy tone of the early 1960s, when culture was on the brink of change.

"Doubt" opens nationwide Friday.

-- Booth Moore

Photo: Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius in "Doubt." Credit: Andrew Schwartz / Miramax Film Corp.

Film fashion: 'Australia's' costume vision*

Continuing my research for a story about costume design scheduled to run in the Dec. 7 Image section, I took in “Australia” over the weekend. It’s a powerful Baz Luhrmann-directed epic that reminded me at times of “Giant” and “Empire of the Sun,” two of my favorite films. And it is gorgeous to look at, from the first frame to the last, thanks in huge part to costume designer Catherine Martin, who also happens to be Luhrmann's wife.

I always enjoy learning about the detail work that goes into costuming a film, especially one of this magnitude, with a staggering 2,000 costumes from 1930s-era vintage gowns to traditional aboriginal dress. Ferragamo did the shoes, including a stunning pair of velvet evening sandals that were replicated for retail and are on sale now, Australian pearl supplier Paspaley made the pearl drop earrings, Prada made the chic blue-and-white luggage and R.M. Williams (the Australian “Bush Outfitter” established in 1932) made the stockmen’s clothing. But the rest of it was all Martin and her crew.   

I stole a couple minutes of her time Tuesday while she was in Madrid promoting the film, to ask a few questions about the project.

The nautical-inspired blue and white suit that Nicole Kidman wears when she arrives on the shores of Darwin, Australia, for the first time is gorgeous. What was the thinking behind that?

Baz saw her character as an uptight English aristocrat, and it needed to be clear that at the beginning she was stiff, and then she transformed. I looked at a lot of women from the 1930s and how they dressed -- Carole Lombard, the Mitford sisters, Lee Miller and the Duchess of Windsor. And I examined the work of Gabrielle Chanel and Mainbocher, who made clothes for the Duchess of Windsor, and Balenciaga. And one thing emerged, this idea that clothes had become a lot more body-conscious in this period. It was about embracing sportswear.

So you had these two things at odds — clothes that were closer to the body, in a time when being slim and tan was fashionable, and her beautiful life. So we took this ludicrous idea that she is dressing in a costume she sees as being appropriate on a flying boat — boat being the operative word. We used a high neckline because she needed to be closed in. She was also anathema to the environment, arriving in this red earth in the most inappropriate outfit: a cream skirt.

And what about that amazing bias-cut cheongsam gown she wears to the ball later in the film?

Baz is always challenging us to think of a backstory. She’d just been on the drove, her trunk has been burnt, so how does she manage to show up at the ball looking fabulous, where is she going to find these clothes? There were two chinoiserie-inspired outfits actually. And as we were doing research looking at newspapers from the time, I noticed a lot of ads for Chinese tailors in Darwin, which was actually very close to Asia — it’s  two hours from Indonesia as opposed to five hours from Sydney. Darwin also had a huge Japanese pearling industry, and Lady Ashley [Kidman] has a Chinese cook. So we came up with the idea that maybe he had a cousin who was a tailor in Darwin. And even back then in 1938, they were advertising that they could make clothes in 24 hours.

The use of the cheongsam was meant to underscore the fact that she has really accepted the motley crew with whom she has formed a family. She’s also not scared to step out of the norm of 1930s society. She’s saying, ‘I’m cool with something that’s Chinese-themed.’ Printed evening wear was big in the late '30s, so we used nontraditional printed organza in an Asiatique print, and changed the shape to a bias cut of the '30s, with a flare at the bottom and a train. Nicole had to look wonderful, fresh and in full bloom.

Hugh Jackman [Drover] really stood out in that scene at the ball in his white suit.
That suit was taken from a classic tailoring book from the 1930s. White jackets were fashionable back then but not common. But we thought that Lady Ashley, being a sophisticated Englishwoman, would think that this white jacket would be appropriate for the Drover since they were in the tropics. We tried a lot of variations, from a black tux to a black tux jacket with mismatched pants, trying to find the right note. It is meant to be the moment they fall in love. It’s his Cinderella moment. That needed to be expressed.

You did a lot of research to authentically wardrobe the aboriginals in the cast. Had you ever done anything like that before?
Never. That’s one of my favorite things about the film. Australia is divided into several aboriginal countries, and every one has a specific feel.  Within every country, there are many cultural groups and thousands of variations. For the purposes of the film, we decided to represent the groups as pan Kimberley [the traditional owners of the land where Faraway Downs is] and pan Arnhem Land, even though the practices within these areas varied. We worked with an expert in aboriginal body decoration, consulted with elders and cultural groups, and with each aboriginal actor.

David Gulpilil [the renowned aboriginal dancer/musician who plays aboriginal elder King George in the film] played a person from his own country, so he could wear stuff from his own country. But Ursula Yovich [Daisy] doesn’t come from Kimberley, so she had to ask her own people and also the people who owned the scarring.

We consulted a lot of photographs by Donald Thompson and Baldwin Spencer, who were forward-thinking anthropologists in the '30s and documented everything. They were all pictures of David Gulpulil’s relatives! And trying to be the politically correct white person, I remember asking him, ‘Why is your grandfather wearing those armbands?’ And he said, ‘To look flash.” Everyone wants to look good! It just proves there are more similarities in humanity than there are differences.

-- Booth Moore

booth.moore@latimes.com

Photos of Nicole Kidman in "Australia" courtesy of 20th Century Fox

*An earlier version of this story listed Molyneaux as a designer Martin researched for the film. It should have been Mainbocher.

Film fashion: The clothes make the men in 'Frost/Nixon' and 'Revolutionary Road'

It’s that time of year when the studios release all their big Oscar contenders, and the media scramble to see screenings. So far, I’ve seen two — “Revolutionary Road,” the darkly depressing tale of 1955 suburban nothingness with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, based on Richard Yates’ novel and directed by Sam Mendes; and “Frost/Nixon,” the screen adaptation of Peter Morgan’s play about the 1977 David Frost/Richard Nixon TV interviews, starring the incredible Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, and directed by Ron Howard. 

What struck me about both was the tremendous role clothing plays in the stories. And I’m not talking about glittering gowns as eye candy. I’m talking about clothing as a character vehicle. In “Revolutionary Road,” the men’s fedoras are a symbol of the monotony of the punch-the-clock jobs men found themselves in at the time, following in the footsteps of their fathers, only to realize that they never had a chance to dream their own dreams. 

One scene that was particularly stirring was when DiCaprio stepped off a commuter train at Grand Central Station in New York City into a sea of lonely fedoras. He was no one and everyone at the same time.