“Mad Men’s” New Look: The ’60s Have Landed

Last night's season five premiere of Mad Men brought back all the old favorite characters and introduced one very important new one: 1960s counter-culture. Much has been made of the series taking place during this tumultuous decade, but the '60s of the first seasons was very different from the '60s of season five. In 1960, when we first met the gang at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Kennedy hadn't yet been elected president, Catholics still said mass in Latin, and the agency didn't even have a TV division. As we pick up in mid-1966, the Beatles are three months away from playing their final concert, Valley of the Dolls is about to become a bestseller, and the civil rights movement is in full swing. The world is changing—fast—and the characters are just along for the ride. On a show notorious for its fashion and impeccable attention to period detail, nowhere is the passage of time more apparent than in the costuming. Gone are the prim crinolines and stiff, starched hairdos—last night's double episode made it clear that Mad Men has entered the world of go-go boots and psychedelic miniskirts.