Business Casual Superstar #175: Joan (“Mad Men”) « The Reasonably Prudent Law Student

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Business Casual Superstar #175: Joan (“Mad Men”)

March 3, 2010 by humarashid

Whee! I’ve done Christina Hendricks’s character on here before, and got a pretty favorable response, so we’re back today with another look for the sultry vixen of the Mad Men office, Joan!

Here she is:

What I love about Joan’s outfits is that they dress her in flattering skirts and blouses that emphasize her hourglass shape and create an undeniably sexy, feminine silhouette that’s classy instead of trashy. She wears bright jeweltones with vintage details like cap sleeves and boatnecks, and she just looks great.

Also, the sweater puppies don’t hurt.

Apparently, the people that run the show encourage the actresses not to work out too much. Imagine that: women that get to look like women! Women with soft, voluptuous curves instead of Coke-bottle hips and implants so massive you could poke an eye out on one of them. I like that. I like that they don’t work out.

So on the train the other day, Andy was talking about switching up his work out routine. I don’t really know what he does, but I know he does stuff. He runs, and seriously, too, not just like, oh, I think I’ll go be yuppie-ish and take a ten minute trot around the block after spending 2 hours stretching. He’ll run like 8 miles on a good day and then come to class the next day saying that his legs are going to fall off and that he found Jesus and for once it wasn’t that one guy with the beard that hides out in the bushes outside Andy’s bedroom window.

He does some other cardio stuff, too, I think, and I remember him talking about swimming at some point, and how he added it to his routine. I think he lifts weights, but I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW HIS LIFE. It’s possible that he also burns calories by chasing school children down the street with a pick-axe; I have no way of knowing. It’s not like I have him under constant surveillance. I will one day, when my crushing paranoia takes over my life, but not today.

Anyway, he was talking about mixing this super intense random stuff in with his existing work out routine and blah blah and stuff and interval training and stuff and perishing, and I nodded along as I always do when I don’t care. :-P

Okay, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t care. It was more that I was thinking about my work out. My work out is highly effective, you guys. It’s taken me a while to streamline my whole process and really nail down the routine, and I’m very, very pleased with the results.

Basically, I put on my work out pants and sports bra and get out my yoga mat, and then I put the DVD in the PS3, whatever it is. Pilates. High-impact aerobics. Yoga. Carmen Electra’s strip tease workout. Tae-bo. Underwater basket weaving. And then, once I’ve put the DVD in, I sit down on the couch and I watch it.

All of it.

And then I turn it off, wipe the sweat off my brow, roll up my hot pink yoga mat, and throw my clothes in the wash and hit the showers.

:-|

It’s strenuous, you guys! It’s also how I keep my trim physique.

…My trim physique, so that I can pull off an outfit like this that Joan would totally wear:

Apt. 09 Solid Pencil Skirt in Brown ……… $27.99
Claudine Tee ………. $48
High Vamp Court Shoe ………. $22.22

Pencil skirts are a staple on the Mad Men set, and DUH – they’re classy, work-appropriate, flattering on a lot of different body types, and feminine. I picked a brown one here and paired it with this orange-melon tee from Anthropologie. You guys know by now how much I like that store. I only shop the sales, though, because I can’t justify spending that much money on a single article of clothing for myself. Someone else, fine. But not me. I just feel bad.

I threw in a pair of glitzy gold shoes, and I’ll admit, I did it mostly because they were the only shoes in the nude/gold color family that fit my budget and weren’t totally fug. ASOS says they’re inspired by Victoria Beckham and Blake Lively, so make what you will of that.

If you want some jewelry to go with this, allow me to make a suggestion. Joan often walks around with a pen on a gold chain around her neck (she’s a secretary, you know), and I kind of kept true to that costume motif.

Here are some cost-effective options for you to pick from.