Rolling back the years

THE BIG four fashion weeks may have drawn to a close but a new season of sartorial eye-candy is only a wiggle dress away. With the fifth series of ABC’s Mad Men due to air on March 27, fans of the popular television series are already gearing up for Saturday nights in with Don, Betty and Joan.

But it’s not just the gin-swilling lascivious advertising milieu of the ’60s that has the denizens in thrall. In fact, one probably doesn’t even need to be a fan of the show in order to understand the oh-so-stylish ‘Mad Men Effect’.

Since the series’ inception in 2008, the visual grammar of the characters, implicit in the translation of costume designer Janie Bryant, has wielded the type of impact not felt since HBO’s Sex and the City.