Mad Men was successful for several reasons – the acting, the writing, the production quality. But what took it from “popular TV series” to “cultural phenomenon” was its style. Costume designer Janie Bryant’s spot-on 50s and 60s looks for Don, Betty, Joan and the other characters made Mad Men as beloved by fashionistas as by TV critics, and she even did a line of clothes inspired by the show for Banana Republic. Now, with Mad Men done and dusted, what will take its place as TV’s most stylish series? We have a few ideas.
Public Morals
Premieres 23 September on TNT. Costume designer: Catherine M Thomas
This series, which premiered on 25 August, comes with crazy impressive credentials: Ed Burns is the writer, director and star; Steven Spielberg is one of the producers. The show is set among the cops, prostitutes and gangsters of 60s New York City, and the pilot brought us looks like a silk kimono and smoky eyes, a tweed dress with a silk blouse (both on Katrina Bowden, who plays hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Fortune) and slim suits, ties and fedoras on the men.
Blood and Oil
Premieres 27 September on ABC. Costume designer: Kathleen Detoro
The new millennium may have an answer to Dallas with Blood and Oil, which stars Don Johnson as the patriarch of a wealthy (you guessed it) oil family in North Dakota. While the scenes of guys working on rigs don’t exactly lend themselves to high fashion, we’re counting on supermodel Amber Valletta (who plays Johnson’s wife) and the other characters to bring tons of glamour to party scenes.
Divorce
Premiere date TBD. Costume designer: Arjun Bhasin
HBO picked up this show, which stars Sarah Jessica Parker as a woman with divorced friends who impulsively decides to split up with her husband (played by Thomas Haden Church), for a full series order. Even though we haven’t seen a single photo or costume from the set, this is SJP we’re talking about – the woman whose last HBO outing, Sex and the City, launched a thousand fashion trends, from giant flower pins to Louboutin shoes – so we’re expecting it to be pretty stylish.
Vinyl
Premieres in 2016 on HBO. Costume coordinator: Nhu-Anh Le
This fall the 70s are back in style, which makes perfect timing for Vinyl, a series about the louche glam rock scene, to make a fashionable splash. The show is a collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, so its bona fides are in place – get ready for bell-bottoms, vests, paisley prints and layers of long scarves.
Minority Report
Premieres 21 September. Costume designers: Caroline Cranstoun and Marina Draghici
Instead of looking backward for style inspiration, why not look to the future? Sci-fi drama Minority Report (which you might remember in another incarnation as a Tom Cruise movie) is set in 2065 Washington DC, so the fashions are sleek and futuristic but still wearable – fitted red leather jackets, space-print tops and leggings on the more action-centric characters, and gauzy gray tunics and soft braids on the spiritual ones.
