Halloween Costume - Betty Draper

For Halloween this year Ben and I went as Don and Betty Draper from AMC's Mad Men. We've become slightly obsessed with the show and who wouldn't love an excuse to dress like they're from the 1960s? So with Halloween as our excuse, we began working on our costumes. Ben's was easy because he already had a gray suit. After that all he needed was a skinny tie, pocket square, and slicked-back hair. Well luckily his great-aunt left him a bunch of ties that one of her husbands used to wear and even more lucky was that Ben decided to actually keep a couple of them. Next came the pocket square. Well he just dropped by Jos. A. Bank and grabbed one (I actually quite like them). Oh and he borrowed a brief case that my dad used to use, but that was just a bonus. Poof! Ben's costume is complete.

My costume was considerably more difficult to find, and I actually never found a dress I wanted (that was a somewhat reasonable price). While shopping in a vintage store, becoming frustrated that I could not find something that looked like "Betty", it dawned on me. Why don't I just make my halloween costume. Sewing a dress couldn't be that hard, right? You just follow the pattern, simple as that. Oh how wrong I was. Haha. I laugh just thinking about the silly ideas that were going through my head as I was coming up with this brilliant idea.

Next thing I know I'm dragging Ben to Hancocks Fabric store looking for a floral print (those were popular back then, right?) I found one with purple, blue, and teal in it (I could see the dress in my head, I had the perfect belt to match). Here I am, fabric in one hand, pattern in the other, determined that I was going to sew the perfect Betty Draper dress - zipper and all. Well let me tell you, I did not end up sewing a dress. Don't worry, I did have something to wear for halloween. What I ended up doing was sewing a skirt. See, the thing is, there is no way I could have sewn a whole dress in the amount of time I had (that's my story I'm sticking to it).

Even though I didn't complete what I had set out to, I am quite proud of the skirt I ended up with - zipper and all. Just throw on a blouse, pearls, belt, petticoat, and matching heels and I was a regular ol' Betty.