Mad Men: 10 Hidden Details About Peggy Olson’s Costumes You Didn’t Notice

Mad Men‘s Peggy Olson, played by Elisabeth Moss, was an inspiration to so many women in the 2010s. Rising through the ranks of the ad agency from secretary to copywriter and finally to copy chief, she impressed viewers episode after episode with her wit, creativity, and colorful outfits.

Peggy’s rise in the advertising world of Mad Men happened at the same time many millennial women were entering the workforce and facing similar obstacles in the real world. With such a relatable story, it was hard not to root for Peggy as she worked her way up the ladder in style. Below are ten hidden details about her costumes, which often revealed more than meets the eye.

10 Her clothes were very “schoolgirl”

Peggy was fresh out of secretarial school when she joined Sterling Cooper in the pilot episode. Costume designer Janie Bryant wanted to emphasize Peggy’s youth and inexperience in her costume design. She dressed Peggy in A-line skirts, Peter Pan collars, and a high ponytail that once earned her this piece of advice from Joan: “You want to be taken seriously? Stop dressing like a little girl.”

Peggy’s style evolves in later seasons, but the schoolgirl look is the blueprint for most of her future costumes: Prim, proper, and more practical than fashionable.

9 Catholicism was a strong influence

Plaid is a prominent pattern in Peggy’s wardrobe throughout all seven seasons of Mad Men. This is consistent with the schoolgirl theme of her costumes and may also reflect her Catholic background. Peggy has a crisis of faith and leaves the church by the end of Season 2.

However, plaid continues to be a strong presence in her clothes through the very last episode, showing that her religious upbringing remains an influence in her life even though she is no longer practicing. Tom and Lorenzo once noted that Peggy is always wearing “some form of grown-up Catholic schoolgirl uniform.”

8 Her clothes hinted at her future

In the Season 1 episode, “Babylon,” Peggy lands her first account at a focus group for Belle Jolie lipsticks. While the other secretaries were excited to try out the sample makeup, Peggy held back, observing instead of participating in the action. Peggy is wearing one of her Season 1 dresses in a subdued brown, helping her stand out among the other secretaries wearing bright reds and cheerful yellows.

At the end of the focus group, she surprises Freddy Rumsen with a few lines of copy as she hands him the basket of discarded tissues. And with that, it became clear that Peggy Olson was destined to be more than a secretary.

7 She was a multi-layered character

Besides plaid, Peggy’s clothes incorporated many textures and patterns such as pleats, polka dots, stripes, and houndstooth. Janie Bryant explained this costuming choice as reflective of Peggy’s multi-layered character.

A Brooklyn native and newcomer to Manhattan, Peggy experienced a culture shock when she started working at Sterling Cooper. As she drifted from her Norwegian Catholic background and followed the path of the career woman, her experiences as a young woman achieving success in a male-dominated industry continued to set her apart.

6 Her hair spoke volumes

Peggy’s hair undergoes a considerable hair transformation in Mad Men, going from the demure curled ponytail in Season 1 to the 1970s bouffant when she takes over Don’s position as Creative Director of Sterling Cooper. The turning point of her hair journey is in Season 3 when she asks her work friend Kurt to shear off her ponytail into a more modern flip.

This is also around the time Peggy begins her professional ascent, taking on more accounts than ever and knocking pitch meetings out of the park. By the end of the 1960s, she had nearly surpassed her longtime mentor and boss, Don Draper.

5 Her style evolved with her career trajectory

Peggy is unique among the main female characters of Mad Men in that she rarely dressed for the male gaze. Whereas Joan, Betty, and Megan all had more romantic costumes that emphasized their sex appeal, Peggy’s style evolution coincided mostly with her professional success.

Peggy’s schoolgirl look eventually turned into more of a high-powered executive look with tailored Chanel suits. There are a few exceptions, of course, such as when she wore a babydoll dress and Chanel Number 5 to seduce her boss, Ted Chaough.

4 Mustard was her favorite color

Janie Bryant had a palette for every character on Mad Men, which she used to tell the character’s story and evoke different moods and emotions. For Peggy, she used plenty of rusts, greens, and navies; however, most of all, she loved dressing Peggy in mustard, describing it as a color that told the story “of a girl who was earthy, not in fashion, and it was not the most flattering color.”

According to Bryant, Elisabeth Moss hated mustard and did not take much inspiration from her Mad Men costumes in putting together her real wardrobe.

3 She had the least amount of time in the chair

Mad Men is certainly well-known for its glamorous 1960s and 1970s costumes, and some of them were more elaborate than others. In contrast to the other cast members, Elisabeth Moss’s relatively simple and natural look as Peggy took only about an hour to create.

Although Moss had the least amount of time in the hair and makeup chair, she admitted to having fun with the padding and facial prosthetics she wore in Season 1 for Peggy’s shocking pregnancy, which took much longer to apply.

2 She re-wore one dress from the previous season every new season

In an interview with Slate, Janie Bryant explained that she had a tradition of starting each new season with an old dress for Peggy, which she loved because it was realistic.

For instance, Peggy wore a black dress with a white grosgrain ribbon down the center in Season 4 and again in the first episode of Season 5. As a working woman, Peggy would have worn many of her ensembles more than once and gradually added pieces to her wardrobe with each new career move.

1 Her pantsuit showed how far she’d come

Though Janie Bryant always wanted Peggy’s costume to have a girlish element to it, there came a point when Peggy’s character development called for a little more maturity. According to Bryant, when she read the script for the Season 6 finale, “In Care Of,” she knew that Peggy had to be in pants for one iconic moment.

Bryant fitted Elizabeth Moss in three to four costumes before deciding on the orange, black, and white vest and pantsuit. The episode ends with Peggy standing in Don Draper’s office — and instead of the traditional silhouette of Don Draper, it’s Peggy in his place, showing us that she is truly the future.

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