‘Mad Men’ costume designer aims to make ‘every woman feel beautiful’ with size inclusive line
It’s rare that a film and television costume designer makes the leap to
developing her own fashion line. But Janie Bryant’s immense passion for
crafting clothing has led her to achieve such a feat. The Emmy-winner has
lent her stylistic vision to Mad Men, Deadwood and the recent series The
Romanoffs and has joined forces with brands like Black Halo, Unique
Vintage, Maidenform and Banana Republic. Now she has launched JXB, a line
of clothing offering an extended size range from 12 to 24.
Serving as a celebration of curvy women, the pieces were inspired by
the Mad Men costumes worn by Christina Hendricks’s character Joan
Holloway.
“I’ve had so many women say to me, ‘I want to look like Joan. When are
you going to make beautiful clothes for us?’ I just heard that over and
over again,” she tells FashionUnited. “Those are the women who really
inspired me because they are used to not having a lot of choices. Every
woman deserves to feel beautiful and to have luxury that’s accessible. It
was really important to me to create this line for them.”
Emmy Winner, Janie Bryant, launches extended clothing line
“What I love about my work as a costume designer is that I get to
create a whole entire world through the clothing,” she adds. “I always say
that my superpower is going back in time but that really is creating a
whole fantasy, creating a whole world through costume design. Which, is
also based on a character and specific to a character and how I visualize
that through the clothing.”
Yet working on her own creations has proven to be a freeing process,
without the constraints of time period or being tasked with representing a
character.
View this post on Instagram“With JXB, I wanted to create a collection that was super modern,
flirty, feminine, figure-defining – so the intentions are completely
different when I’m costume designing for a show,” she adds. “It’s different
parts of the brain.”The JXB by Janie Bryant collection focuses largely on denim, Mongolian
cashmere and real leather. As part of the launch, model and activist
Marquita Pring is headlining a campaign for the pieces.While the two-year process of developing JXB called for determination,
Bryant found the work far less taxing.“Costume design is very challenging. It’s probably one of the most
difficult things I’ve ever done in my life,” she shares. “We can have
hundreds and hundreds of costumes that also needed to be fitted in costumes
head to toe. There can be hundreds of costumes that have to be created just
for one episode or one movie. It’s a massive thing.”She adds, “Creating a collection is different in the way that – you’re
creating garments for production but it’s not creating hundreds and
hundreds of pieces at one time. It’s men women children of all ages, all
shapes and sizes.”Prior to creating looks for the screen, Bryant studied fashion design
at American College of Applied Arts and later worked in both Paris and New
York. Yet it was her work on the popular ‘60s set drama that ultimately led
success in the design world.“With the popularity of Mad Men and me being able to design all these
collaborations and be able to work with all these fashion companies is such
a unique thing,” she shares. “I don’t think most costume designers want to
be fashion designers and vice versa. I just happened to love both. I’ve
been lucky enough to do both. I’ve wanted to have my own collection, my own
brand for a long time and now it’s finally happening. It’s so exciting.”Photos courtesy of the brand