The Society Of The Spectacle

The Internet has gone suitably Mad Men mental as Season 5, after a 17 month delay, finally returns to our screens (well, in the US anyway…). Having done a quick refresher of Season 4 this week, it’s quote easy to forget how brilliant the show is. It’s nuanced writing, it’s slow burn qualities (albeit diluted when you watch a few back to back), and of course, it’s obsessional attention to detail.

Newsweek has dedicated this weeks issue to the return of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with these wonderful (and sometimes awful) retro ads for modern day brands. The brands that really nailed it? The ones that were around in that era. The collection shows how hard it is to do retro without it veering into pastiche. Having got a collection of vintage TIME magazines from around 1966/67, these ads really nailed the colours, and printing qualities, not just the art and copy.

The second thing that has broken this week is this weird fan mashup. 8Bit Mad Men is what happens when Choose Your Own Adventure, meets 8bit Arcade Game, meets 1960′s adland. Surprisingly, it works. It’s a hell of alot of fun, and is just another example of the devotion to detail that fandom of Mad Men generates.

Having read some of the preview reviews for the show, the quality of the two hour season premiere is undiminished. With so many questions left unanswered, and new plot-lines beginning to flower (Don & Megan etc…), it will be brilliant to see how the Mad Men evolve as the Summer Of Love approaches… (Which is nicely theorized in this article in the LA TImes; ‘How Groovy Will Mad Men Get?’)

Awesome promo film for NYC in 1962. Ostensibly capturing the changes to the skyline and the ground (a promo for Equitable Life Assurance Co it seems), it also captures the reality of Manhattan life at that time. This really does feel like the time of the Mad Men. Music included. (Lots of cute jazz riffs).

And to think, with all this optimism, the city would be bankrupt and told to ‘Drop Dead’ 14 odd years later. Amazing.

(Via Buzzfeed)

Here’s a fantastic flickr set uncovering the delightful world of 1960′s Advertising, US style. It’s illuminating to see the morals and attitudes of the Mad Men world so accurately reflected in these ads, it shows how well the show is researched and written, but also the almost unnerving positivity of advertising of this age. It’s pure unadulterated selling, and in it’s own way is quite a refreshing change of pace.

It’s a big collection, about 300/400, so take some time to really dig around. See some more of my favorites after the jump. (P.S if you want more of this type of stuff then head over to The Footnotes Of Mad Men – beware! Season 3 spoilers will be there for all UK followers…)
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Well Mad Men season 3 is in full swing, and the buzz (as i mentioned in a post last month) has never been greater. So it’s good news that the ratings have spiked for the show and the shows fan’s continue to help fill in the gaps of the Mad Men world, but also fill in some of the contextual gaps. This development in particular is of interest. (more…)

Much buzz has been generated at the (US) return of Mad Men for it’s third season. (more…)

An interesting show from Thom Browne at Pitti Uomo in Florence.
Some people are saying Madmen (sort of true)
Suzy Menkes is saying – “Clark Kent Superman under the prim gray cardigans”
I’m saying Tony Hancock in ‘The Rebel’

Thom Browne @ Pitt Uomo

And Tony Hancock in  The Rebel (about 3.30 in and you’ll see what I mean…)