GH's Throwback Thursday Mad Men Outtakes: "Field Trip"

This week, my recap on the Good Housekeeping website zeroed in on the child hunger issue in the 1960s and what GH was trying to do about it...

...and on what GH is trying to do about it today. A No Kid Hungry story appears in every issue of GH now, and it's a cause we really believe in.

In the May 2014 issue of GH, for example, we published a guide to hosting your own No Kid Hungry bake sale and an essay by novelist Melanie Thorne about her experiences trading gumdrops for sandwiches, so to speak, growing up.

I really couldn't help but think of this when I watched that field trip scene, despite the fact that we don't know for sure that Bobby Draper's little friend is having hunger issues. It just seemed awfully odd to me that she would have gone to school without a proper sandwich, even if she may attend a private school (who's to say her parents aren't sacrificing nutrition for education)?

As usual, GH has chosen the best of these finds for my weekly recap, and I'm here to give you the rest. Here's what else I found for episode 7.3, Mad Men: "Field Trip."

I'm guessing Betty Draper Francis is unconcerned about the little girl who doesn't have a sandwich because a) she's obviously more focused on herself, b) she's hungry, dammit—those cigarettes do not equal "lunch," c) she thinks she's unappreciated by her children after all she does for them, or d) she assumes the mother of this child has just started working, like her "friend" Francine does, so she's clearly too harried to remember packing lunches.

In April 1969, many Good Housekeeping readers would have concurred with theory d). Betty would have been one of about 44% of U.S. mothers who didn’t work outside of the home then, according to the U.S. Census. Here's a (somewhat?) facetious editorial written by one of them in that month's GH:

Is it a coincidence that there's a white bread ad dovetailing this column? Methinks not.



Working women and feminism and, you know, just feeling fulfilled for being a person, aside, let's talk about how non-old-fashioned Betty's hair is in this episode.

Here's the April 1969 cover of Good Housekeeping:

And here's Betty's very glamorous field-trip look:

If Betty Francis wasn't getting hair tips out of GH, I don't know where she was getting them from (and yes, I realize she is a fictional character). The March 1969 issue, a month before her lunch with Francine, had a guide to styling your hair with hot rollers, a relatively new concept (no more sleeping on Coke cans—hurray!), that looked like this:

And here's Betty in her half-up do for her ladies' lunch:

Coincidentally, we also ran a hairstyle story in the April 2014 GH, this time on the innovative things you can do with curling irons (all of which were tested in the GH Beauty Labs for effectiveness, with the winners highlighted):

As has been noted around the Web this week, Betty barely touches her salad at this lunch with Francine, so you can hardly blame Bobby for assuming his mother doesn't plan on eating on the field trip!

I'm wondering if there's a theme here with the Jenny Craig program that changed "fat Betty" into "hot mama Betty," and women's focus on thinness at that time in general. I mentioned in an earlier post the shift in this era from fashion shoots featuring models posing in the home to those that showed the "single girl," fun, youthful, jumping around, etc. As I've flipped through these old issues of GH, the mecca of housewife magazines at that time, I've been noticing a slight shift—i.e., lots more articles about diet and low-fat recipes for women. And lots more sandwich ads geared towards men.

What's the one thing we've noticed the gentlemen of this season eating more than anything else? Sandwiches.

Don in California with Pete. Don with Freddie and some Orange Crushes at the end of the first episode. The chicken salad sandwich Don eats while on pins and needles at the end of "Field Trip," waiting in the creatives' room to meet his fate. That scene juxtaposed with Bobby eating his gumdrops, thinking about the extra sandwich he's given away (I have to guess Matthew Weiner put these scenes side by side for a reason).

The BLT Roger is waiting for in the Algonquin when he gets Don Draper instead.

I think we're seeing a trend this season of working women and apparently also housewives who are doing all they can to look thin and young, including not eating much. And men who are eating a ton of sandwiches because fewer people are making home-cooked meals. Just a theory...we'll see if it keeps happening.

Back to the matchups.

There's a whole lot going on in fashion on "Field Trip." Let's start with Megan, the most fashion-forward of the bunch.

When Don surprises her in L.A., her wardrobe blends with her creepy apartment so well that her curtains might even be the same fabric as her blouse. But it's her crochet-knit vest and skirt that I'm more interested in.

In our everything-old-is-new-again category, check out the near-perfect match on Monica Potter in our June 2014 issue, on newsstands now:

It's been noted that Peggy wears the same outfit this episode that she wore when SCD&P combined with Ted's company last season. Somehow, it looks like a colder color than before, though. Don's been gone so long, that it seems many viewers have forgotten Peggy's reasons to say, "I can't say we miss you." Don't forget that it was his decision to send Ted off to L.A., which effectively ended her relationship with him.

But, in her way, Peggy is very much in style for April 1969. A close match to her coat and skirt appeared in the March GH:

Even the clothing on the extras on this episode were chosen with precision. When a strange woman comes on to Don (as several seem to be doing this season), she's wearing a look straight out of the February 1969 GH:

Why is Weiner having Don turn down these offers left and right this season, by the way? Is it meant to illustrate, as he said recently on NPR to Terry Gross, what a changed man Don has become?

And it's not like I'm ignoring Don's character arc here. As I mentioned in the first post, I just think the focus Weiner's bringing to the female characters this season is really interesting and gels nicely with what was happening in magazines like GH at that time.




One thing that really stood out to me (besides the sandwich ads and abundance of feminine deodorant sprays—that's a combo you'll never see again anywhere else!) in these spring GH issues was the number of stories that featured a large photo of a woman coddling a child. In the March issue in particular, for some reason, the number of these skyrocketed:

And even in the ads, like the ones for beauty products:

Let's hope those 1969 moms were happier and more fulfilled than this one:

Until next time, "Eat your candy."

GH's Throwback Thursday Mad Men Outtakes: "A Day's Work"

As promised, here are my outtakes from the second episode of the season, "A Day's Work."



Episode 7.2: “A Day’s Work”

It’s the second episode of the season, and it’s beginning to seem like the film It’s a Wonderful Life. What is life like without Don Draper in it? What is the office like? One thing’s for sure—there’s clutter, clutter everywhere, both at SC&P and in Don’s swank apartment (or formerly swank). One of the opening scenes of this episode shows Don with his hand in a box of Ritz crackers, watching The Little Rascals on TV. According to my sources, who actually lived through this time period, snacking out of a box like that was relatively unheard of. And yet today you can pop into almost any deli or bodega and be overwhelmed by the vast variety of snack options.

In February 1969, it was just the beginning…

Several women get promoted at work, seemingly randomly, this episode. But I think what lies at the heart of these promotions is their loyalty to the company. Dawn ends up with Joan’s old job by episode’s end, and by then we’ve learned that she’s still updating Don at home on the goings on of the company and wants to do so without extra pay (though Don insists otherwise). Joan, it turns out, has been working two jobs, and finally gets her promotion to ad man.

Peggy, on the other hand, is capsized by the weight of Valentine’s Day and the sheer number of women in the office with flowers on their desks, especially her very own secretary, whose roses she mistakes for her own. “Look at you, every inch a girl,” her employee Stan teases her.

While she seems embarrassed about her meltdown, there’s really very little she can do about it.

And is it just me, or do those roses seem to multiply in size throughout the episode? They look like a dozen at first, and I'm pretty sure someone, Dawn or Peggy, says there are a dozen of them. But by episode's end, there are definitely at least three dozen roses in that vase.

We get an interesting look at race relations of the time period this episode, too. The only two black secretaries in the office, Dawn and Shirley, refer to each other by their own names, a nod to how often their coworkers mix them up. And in an office that has become more and more conservative in the absence of their fearless leader, Shirley is anything but:

But check out her dress doppelganger in the February 1969 GH:

Incidentally, another Shirley, Shirley Chisholm, was the first black woman to join the House of Representatives in 1968, and yet Bert Cooper can’t handle having a black woman work the reception desk at SC&P because “someone might see her.”

Ponder that one.


Until next time, as Sally Draper would say, "Just tell the truth."

GH's Throwback Thursday Mad Men Outtakes: "Time Zones"

Since I started doing Mad Men "Throwback Thursday" posts for the Good Housekeeping website a week ago, some of you have asked me, "Hey Laura, whatever happens to all those sweet, sweet Diptic match-ups that never make it into your recap?" So, for your viewing pleasure, I'll be posting those outtakes here, on my personal blog, each Friday. There are so many great discoveries in the GH archives that I'd be remiss not to share these with you.


Here are the ones from the first episode.

Episode 7.1: "Time Zones"

Itʼs Mad Menʼs final season, and in seven short years weʼve jumped nine years in TV time—from 1960 to 1969.

The first scene of nearly every season premiere of this much-loved series has centered on our anti-hero, ad man Don Draper, usually panning in on the back of his head, mimicking the animation in the showʼs opening credits. But this season was just a little bit different. The first minutes were filmed through the lens of Donʼs mentee, Peggy Olson (which was also the case in one of the final scenes last season, if you remember).

We the audience watched what she watched, as though we were viewing the 1960s ad world through the eyes of a woman for the first time.

When this series began, the idea of a woman working as an ad executive was laughable. And yet Don knew that his success in advertising relied largely on figuring out what women wanted. In Mad Men's premiere episode, when Don asks a waiter in a restaurant what cigarettes he smokes and why, the man adds that his wife hates it that he smokes because she read in Readerʼs Digest that it could kill him, which he quickly dismisses by saying, “Women sure love their magazines.”

“Yes, they do,” Don agrees.

But that waiter could easily have found the same info in Good Housekeeping, which stopped publishing cigarette ads in 1952. Compared to all other media in the ʼ60s, womenʼs magazines showed the best examples of changing womenʼs roles in society. A study published by The Journal of Psychology in 1992 found a “slow and steady increase in stories with feminist themes” in the years after Betty Friedanʼs 1960 article in GH, the precursor to her The Feminine Mystique.

From now until the end of the season, Iʼll set out to show you examples of those changing roles (and some fashion and beauty, too—promise), as seen through the eyes of characters like Peggy, Joan, Megan, Betty and even Sally, the womenʼs magazine readers of the series and—particularly in Joan and Peggyʼs case—the women whose ideas were changing history.

Before "Time Zones" even aired, we had weeks of promotions from series creator Matthew Weiner, several of which showed the newly L.A.-glamorous Megan Draper. We’ve seen her wear a fall before, but never quite like this. A quick peek into the January 1969 Good Housekeeping reveals a startlingly uncanny example of the trend. Can you tell which is which?

On the left is an illustration by Howard Terpning for an excerpt of a 1968 novel by Norah Lofts, called The Lost Queen. Terpning’s style was similar to that of his contemporary, Brian Sanders, the 75-year-old illustrator Weiner recruited to design the promotional ads for the sixth season of Mad Men, who was also once a regular GH contributor (his artwork appears in the March 1969 issue).

This particular illustration style was often called "bubble and streak," a method that involved mixing soap with gouache paint. Below is an example of Brian's GH work.

And here are some other Megan Draper-esque characters from the February 1969 GH (part of an Avon ad, no less, one of Sterling, Cooper & Partners’ newest clients), along with a close-up of Megan’s makeup at the airport as she greets Don.

In February 1969, GH interviewed six or so acclaimed makeup artists for explanations on how to achieve this look. My favorite part of this is where he calls lavender a "nothing color."

January 1969 would see Richard Nixon’s inauguration, the last public performance by the Beatles and a Southern California oil spill that would inspire a senator to organize the first Earth Day the next year.

After hearing former full-timer Freddie Rumsen’s amazing pitch (which unbeknownst to Peggy was actually conceived by Don, who seems to be using Freddie as a voice box during his paid leave), Peggy tries to adjust the catchphrase for Accutron watches to blend with her own vision, a signature Draper move. It’s not just the opening scenes of this first episode that center on a woman’s perspective—it’s nearly all of it. We don’t even see Don Draper until several minutes in, and even then he is traveling to visit his wife who’s finding success in her acting career in Los Angeles and essentially now lives alone. Other than his work with freelancer Freddie, Don seems to have a good amount of time on his hands (pun intended), though his wife believes he’s still going to work every day.

When Megan picks up Don at LAX, it’s in a new car. His first instinct is to open the passenger’s side door for her, but she whispers to him that she has to be the driver because she can’t figure out how to adjust the seats yet.

Here’s what GH readers thought women knew about cars in January and February 1969.

Around this time, the concept of “the single girl” was becoming prominent in women’s magazines. Whereas models had once been photographed posing in the home, a youthful woman, running around and jumping outside, had become the norm. A single career girl is something Megan has clearly begun to see herself as, despite the fact that she’s already married.

One of the funniest parts of this episode is when a stressed-out Ken Cosgrove scolds secretary-turned-partner Joan Holloway for using his phone to save the Butler Footwear account, one SC&P might have lost had Joan not shown so much ingenuity, despite her sexist treatment by its new head of marketing. Joan’s usually pretty good at conducting these business deals in secret, but this time she slips up and leaves an earring in Ken’s office. Ken throws it at her but misses because of his recent eye injury at the hands of Chevy. Mad Men costumer Janie Bryant was right on when she put those bulky earrings on Joan—they were very trendy that year.

As for Peggy’s wardrobe this season, is anyone else missing those glorious bell bottoms from the sixth season finale? Those pants made a real statement as she hung out in Don’s office like she owned the place. And they were well represented in the January 1969 GH.

She’s still wearing a ton of plaid in 1969, but not in a good way. And she insists on wearing that white knit tam every episode and is veering more towards schoolgirl than fashion-forward woman with those miniskirts and knee socks. Could this change be due to Ted’s absence? Or because of Lou’s oppressive treatment of her?

Either way, according to GH, she’s still in style.

I wish we could say that the despicable Lou Avery isn’t, but even in his cardigan, he has his bases covered.

(I'm making these photos extra small, 'cause frankly, Lou barely deserves to be here.)



What did everyone think of Megan’s very woodsy bungalow in the Hollywood Hills? It definitely doesn’t have Don’s touch, and she scoffs when he tries to add a modern TV to it without asking her permission first (that’s new!). I wonder where she got the idea to decorate with so much wood? Maybe from the January 1969 GH? (Surely not from Playboy.)

That's a bathroom, guys! A bathroom.

By the way, while that orange scarf look Megan's got going on here might seem like a bold and original move on her part (I'm sure Don had meant for her to wear it kerchief-style while driving), it's not. Here's how the ladies were wearing headscarves in 1969.

And, in an everything-that's-old-is-new-again twist, here's how Monica Potter wears one in the June 2014 GH, on newsstands now.

But back to Megan's creepy kitchen. OK, it's not creepy...unless you believe she will be murdered in it by season's end...

Megan’s cooking style is seeing a few changes this season. When Don comes home from visiting Pete and the L.A. offices, prominently displayed on the stove is a casserole dish (though Megan says she’s making Coq au Vin). This time period saw an upswing in casseroles, meant to save the modern woman time in the kitchen.

By the time Don boards his red-eye back to New York, he seems to be feeling fairly ubiquitous ("I wonder if I broke the vessel"—a biblical reference?), or “invisible,” as Pete would say in the next episode. He sits next to a gorgeous middle-aged widow (Neve Campbell in what I believe to be the first wrap dress we’ve seen yet on this series, though von Furstenberg wasn't making these yet then) who offers him sleeping pills, then jokes that he can “blame Madison Avenue” for his misconceptions about glamorous seatmates. When Don refuses, she decides that she’ll hold back, too.

And they’re not the only ones. Millions of readers were getting the same idea from GH that month.

Finally, if you saw the GH recap that showed off the crazy-amazing gingham match-up, you're going to love this. Here's Peggy Olson in her gingham dress, the original gingham-wearer, the O.G....oh, you get the picture.

Until next time, "'Accutron: It's time for a conversation.'"

I'm Baaaccckkk

Stay tuned, folks. A new blog post soon to come. Too much is happening in grammar and fashion for me to ignore it any longer.

Transformations, revelations and big, fat lips and lashes

(This post was written in 2008 and is now being reposted.) Believe it or not, on the day after my last post, I received an e-mail regarding my meeting with the aforementioned magazine editor. And ...? I now have a fact-checking job at a major, national consumer magazine in New York City.

Of course, it is only a three-week-long project. But! I will network like crazy while I am there ... and this editor sent my resume to many other influential editors at six women's magazines. So that has to lead to something, right? My plan right now is to search for job openings at those magazines online and then ask the mag editor about them, since she sent my resume to people who already work for those places.

And I will continue on my full-time job search, but in a much-less frustrated way, now that I know I will be able to cover the expenses for getting to my friend's Jamaican wedding after all. And -- I get to feel extra fancy because I have accomplished one of my lifelong goals -- I will be working at a major women's magazine. Even if it is freelance.

Yay!

Maybe I should start asking for things on this blog as an experiment, just to see if I get a response the next day. I really need a million dollars. No, really.

OK, so personal things aside, back to fashion. It seems like minimalist looks are going to be very big this fall, so I might not have a whole lot to complain about. Minimalist fashion usually involves very well-tailored, simple looks. And a lot of black or gray with maybe one or two stand-out items. I've loved the idea of wearing bright shoes with black clothes for some time now, and I also love the idea of buying classic, well-made pieces that will never go out of style. And I wear a lot of black. But black with one bright color just makes me feel more like an artist. See? In this incredibly blurry photo?







What else is happening? Oh, here is the new bridesmaid dress my friend would like us to wear:





It's basically the same as the other dress, but shorter -- which will be helpful in slimming down our calves since we have to wear flat sandals. (The Ann Taylor dress hit about mid-calf, as many bridesmaid dresses do -- but without heels, it's like the least-flattering leg look you can get). This new dress also has a boat neck, which might emphasize my chest too much ... but not if I lose the 25-30 pounds I plan to lose before this December wedding.

Think it can't be done? Think again ... I put on the weight in the past year due to a medicine that increased my appetite and slowed my metabolism dramatically. I haven't gained a pound in the two months I've been off the medicine, so this should be smooth sailing.

I started an exercise routine last week, using this Pedal Exerciser from Target:



Laugh, if you must. But it really works! My boyfriend already lost 10 pounds from using it ... but then, he uses it for about 2 hours every day.

Also, as I was searching for those flat, dressy silver sandals for the Jamaican beach wedding, I came across a Web site seemingly sent by God to waste all of my time.

It's called Shop Style and it enables you to create various looks based on a database of chothing, shoes, makeup, etc. Amazing. That's all I have to say.

Here's my favorite shoe so far for the bridesmaid dress:



In the end, that site might actually save me time -- it's not the easiest thing to bring a dress to lots of shoe stores to get a difficult-to-find shoe. Shop Style allowed me to place the bridesmaid dress next to the wedding gown and then place up to 600 different silver sandals next to them to see if they matched.

And no, I am not getting paid to say any of this.

As for makeup gripes, I'm still not sure what the major makeup trends will be for fall ... but I do know which lip-plumping lipstick to never, ever use -- in the fall or any other time.


It's called "Too Faced Lip Injection." I guess I should be wary when I see an illustration of a needle on a lip plumper, but here is how the product is described on the Sephora Web site: "Its patented formula is based on medically-proven blood vessel dilating technology touted to create the sexiest pout this side of a plastic surgeon's office."

After trying this gloss on Saturday, I left the Short Hills Sephora store with swollen, painful red lips that looked somewhat like I had been drinking cherry Kool-Aid for seven hours. Even though I rubbed the stuff off vigorously, it still took a good thirty minutes for my mouth to return to a normal, less Angelina-Jolie-on-a-bad-day size ... and color.

If you are really looking to plump something, I recommend that you try this Christian Dior mascara, which did something amazing to my eyelashes, especially after I used it three times. (I was waiting for my friend to get a makeover). Geez, it seems like I left that place looking like Pamela Anderson ...

Anyway, here's the mascara, which I will most likely not be able to fit into my budget any time soon:


A pretty good find, I'd say, for a company that promotes itself with zebra-print and leopard-print eye-shadows -- on its Web site and on its staff. Eek!

As far as grammar gripes go, the other day my bride-to-be friend said one wedding gown she tried on was more "bridally" than the other ... I think I understood what she meant, but I'm still not completely sure.

I learned something tremendously serendipitous, language-wise, just yesterday, however. My friend is getting married in the mayoral office on Friday, August 8th (but then technically renewing her vows in Jamaica in December). Friday turns out to be 08/08/08. That's a super lucky number in China, hence the start of the Olympics at 8:08 p.m. on Friday and the reason many Chinese couples are marrying on that day. The New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee even wrote a piece about 08/08/08 weddings in the Sunday Styles section.

But August 8th has been an unlucky day the past five years for me, because it's the anniversary of my father's sudden, accidental passing. Shortly after his death, I began seeing lots of 88s -- in license plates, street signs, on clocks. I also saw variations of it, like 11s and 8s. It drove me a little crazy at first. I couldn't figure out if I was fixated on those numbers or if they really were just magically appearing. I think it falls under the category of "magical thinking" ... something Joan Didion talks about in her memoir of her husband's death. It's something the brain does in order to make sense of something horrifying. That healing potential of the mind is really quite a beautiful thing. But it can be confusing when it is happening.

The other night, after reading Lee's article, I decided to research the reason for the luckiness of the number 8 in China. I discovered that in Mandarin, 8 is pronounced "ba," which sounds like "fa" -- the word for prosperity. But the word "ba" said twice in Mandarin means "father." So August 8th is traditionally Father's Day in China. Another neat fact about "ba" is that in Mandarin slang, the term "88" is often typed to say "goodbye" in e-mails and text messages -- because "ba-ba" sounds like "bye-bye" in English.

Put those together and August 8th stands for "bye-bye" and "father" in Mandarin. How incredibly freaky is that?

I couldn't believe that those are the only three meanings for "ba-ba" -- 88, father and bye-bye -- so I did some further research. The word "ba" also brought up a link to a Feng Shui site, which talks about the "ba gua" or eight ways. The ba gua basically form the eight directions on a compass. Feng Shui uses an octagon-shaped map to separate different parts of a room and to indicate which items of furniture should be placed in those eight areas.

Strangely enough, at my dad's funeral, I recited an essay I had written about his teaching me how to navigate through the woods as a little girl. I called it "The Navigator." I wrote it on Father's Day -- the American one. And many times, I've considered getting a tattoo of a compass to commemorate him, without even realizing it consisted of eight directions.

Very weird. And yet, it makes me feel incredible that maybe this is what all those 88s I used to see meant. At one point, when I got tired of the nonsensical nature of it all, I decided that it would mean my dad was trying to get in touch with me ... and now I think maybe I was right.

Please don't think I sound like Jim Carrey in the movie "23"! I think this stuff is too much of a coincidence to not be true!

On a lighter note, anyone notice all those typos in that recent Sunday Styles section? Is the copy editor on vacation??

Also on a lighter note, I'll leave you with the top half of that minimalist yellow-shoes photo ...

Taken at Lorenzo's Pizza in Philadelphia in March 2007. Also, clearly the start of that chemically-altered, ravenous appetite I mentioned earlier.