Modern Women, Don't Laugh at Mad Men Fashion

In some ways, you're more oppressed today
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 22, 2010 1:50 PM CDT
Modern Women, Don't Laugh at Mad Men Fashion
Jon Hamm, left, and January Jones portray Don and Betty Draper in "Mad Men."   (AP Photo/AMC)

Modern women may watch Mad Men and laugh at the cinched waists, gloved arms, and missile-like bras, no doubt relieved they got a pass on the seemingly oppressive fashion era. Hold that thought, writes Meghan Daum. "For all the ways those clothes remind us how far women have come, they also shed light on how fast we hit another wall, one that may be even more constricting than everyday girdles and pointy bras," she writes at the Los Angeles Times.

"The post-feminist sensibility eschews such gear yet demands flat bellies; it prizes large breasts but also expects them to stand up miraculously." Today, the show's characters would be visiting plastic surgeons instead of relying on "highly engineered bras." They'd be "goaded into attempting self-transformation on a much larger scale than in the 1960s, when no one bought into the notion that beauty was effortless." Back then, "normal proportions" weren't a fashion sin. Now which generation has it easier again?
(More Mad Men stories.)

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