dimanche 10 août 2025

 

hy I love Betty Draper from Mad Men

This article is more than 16 years old
Absurdly complicated yet utterly plausible, Betty Draper inspires breathless devotion in me for her rebellion against her philandering husband

The pre-emptive, knowing chatter on series two of AMC's extraordinary Mad Men confused me. This time, said anyone who knew anything about high-end, thoughtful, exquisitely styled and elegantly scripted American dramas, it's All About the Women. I thought this was odd. As far as I was concerned, it had only ever been about the women. But tant mieux, I reasoned, bring it on. More exposure to these staggering creations could only be good for my soul.

The gals of Mad Men are fabulous, without exception. They are the anti-Mistresses. They are nuanced and contradictory, surprising and bad. They are at least a little bit mental, and they are never anything less than inspirationally well dressed. Or half-cut, for that matter. But I only worship at the shrine of one of them. (Anything else would be exhausting, no?) I love office manager Joan Holloway, of course. I loved her from episode one, series one. I love her skin and her sardonic smoking style and her instinctive scheming. She is pure sex in a scarlet woollen day dress; and she is the least vulnerable of all the characters, which makes her something of a relief in the grand scheme of their myriad miseries.

But this far into series two, it's Betty Draper – Betsy, Bets! – who's inspiring all the breathless devotion in me. It's Betty D whom I worship. Partly, sure, it's because of the way she looks. It is her glacial, Kennedy-woman-standard gorgeousness, it's the flick in her eye liner and the gloss on her hair. Plus, her costumes are stellar. I dream of doing equestrian chic as well as Bets; I cannot pretend I haven't channelled the jodhpurs and cream-crew-neck combo, because I have.

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