Oh wow, these Monday’s creep up so fast!  Last week was a bit of a whirlwind–I was in LA for work and I didn’t stop moving the entire time I was there.  I was told that I could still blog from my new little iPhone, but to be honest, I don’t think I am ready for that yet.  You understand, right?

So this week for Mad Men Monday, I am relying on the trusty Mod Cloth to help me out.  All the clothes I like are usually very Joan-ish.  Next week, I will try to find some Betty goods.

We have a day and night version of the same dress and then the navy number is a little of both.  It has a nice professional collar, but the short length is all about the par-tay!

Sadly it is Monday, (again?!) but happily it is also Mad Men Monday!  I will continue to post Mad Men inspired posts from both vintage and new shops for the rest of the season.  Last week I highlighted that cute little pink tweed number and this week I have an amazing vintage vendor to highlight.  When it comes to sourcing clothing for posts, I have found twitter to be such an amazing tool. For example I found the lovely @nodtomodvintage via another twitter peeps #Follow Friday and this brown dress won me over.

The blue dress might be pulling a little more mid-sixties, but it’s so stinkin’ cute I couldn’t not include it.  Please let me know if you have an inclusions for upcoming Mad Men Mondays.  I am really enjoying these.  Oh and last week I rocked a very Peggy dress to work to celebrate the first Budget Retro Mad Men Monday.  I will post it next week and take a vote on if you think it is work appropriate or if I look like a 10 year old. ha!

I love the shear top and the beautiful pleating and this is the perfect length to avoid weird looking calves.  My only thought is that this beautiful model is actually too thin to show the true lines of this wiggle dress, so if you have some curves show them off with this dress.

The collar and cuffs drew me in on this one and this color blue is my favorite color.  I love deep royal blue on brunette’s, it’s very complementary. Both dresses are from NodtoModvintage on Etsy.  Click the images to check out the store.

I have been toying with the idea of featuring a Mad Men inspired outfit every Monday while this season is airing.  Thoughts?  It might be fun to include both new and vintage ideas.  I won’t task myself with finding replicas of cast outfits, but just cute late 50’s to early 60’s looks to pay homage to the only show that gets me excited to watch tv.

SIDEBAR: I had a lovely, lovely weekend filled with long overdue cleaning, mending, shopping, reading and pampering.  The hubby was working so I got caught up on a little “me” time.  I was just about over the edge on Friday, so take note that I am now a sane, happy girl.

Now back to the post at hand, Mad Men Monday.  As I went back and re-read my lovely September issue magazines this weekend I re-assessed my dog-eared articles and found a super cute ad in Lucky Magazine for Kmart.  Kmart has been a little behind the bar with their clothing and it was refreshing to see them out with clothes that a grown gal might actually wear. I went to the site today and they have also made huge improvements to the online shopping experience too! (The navigation is still a little sketchy, but leaps and bounds from where they were.)

The outfit that caught my eye is this retro pink number.  I love the 3/4 sleeves, the texture of the tweed and the well-placed asymmetrical button.  Oh and the ruby red mary jane’s—sign me up!
I would probably go for an ivory blouse under this, with my pearl stud earrings to soften all the pink.   This entire get-up is under $80!!! I think this would probably be more of a Peggy outfit.

Okay… so occasionally I have to admit that I get sucked in by pop culture phenomenons and get a little OCD about them.  Whether it is reading the whole twilight saga in two weeks (don’t judge!) or finding an already successful show via Netflix and then crazily watching every episode back to back for an entire weekend.  This would be the case with Mad Men—I was late to the party, but then I ended up taking 5 shots in 10 minutes just to catch up. (Lame analogy, but you should have a visual now.)  I just finished season two on DVD this weekend and I am even more in love now.

The best part of me missing all the hype is that in Jan 2008 I was working a “luxury booth” in LA for a previous client and I got to meet Jon Hamm, but I didn’t know who he was.  I awkwardly ended up eating lunch with him and Taraji Henson (again, had no idea who she was) because we were all stuck eating this random buffet of food in a confined space.  The table was really small and I was totally just making, anxious eating with strangers, small talk.  Had I known what I know now about both actors I probably would have been too nervous to talk?  Ahhh. Ignorance is bliss!

Anyhow fast-forwarding to my present day infatuation, there is a part two to my love for Mad Men and her name is Dyna Moe.  She is the gal that draws up the scenes from the show on a weekly basis and she just put her signature on the Madmenyourself.com site.  It is brilliant!  The photo above is me in the beautiful red dress—pretty stinkin’ close to the real thing—hips and all!  I was actually following this Dyna Moe gal on twitter long before I realized my love for Mad Men.  You see Dyna Moe @dynamoe is friends with my friend Spooner (He is prob not going to be happy that I included his name here, so I will leave his handle out of this.) and she is always making funny comments to him, so as you do in the twitter world, I started following her and enjoying her quick wit.  So this is part two of my Mad Men affiliation–being connected to cool people associated with the show, but not really knowing them or talking to them.  I mean can you be second degree cool?  If so, I am totally that.

Now for part three (you really should do things in threes) I have another gal on twitter that I follow, Kim @FastEddiesRetro.  She posted this gorgeous dress recently and, low and behold, it is one of the dress choices on the Madmenyourself.com site. Sadly, I just feel like I need an extra 4-5 inches of leg to rock these wiggle dresses, when I put them on with my proportions they go to like mid-calf and just look odd. But if you are taller than 5’2, I think you should buy it.

While you are at it, you should probably go and buy the DVD’s of Season 1 and Season 2 and then you can email me and we can chat about it.  Even if we are only talking about the clothes!