After our 80s dinner party Clare & I joined our pals Jules & Tom at their pad in Leeds for a Mad Men themed 1950s dinner party.

If you’ve never seen it, it’s a wicked show about Madison Avenue advertising execs as the 50s turned into the 60s.

It’s a fantastically styled, beautifully lit period piece about life at the turn of the 60s, the sexism, adultery and drinking lots of expensive whiskey.

So in true Don Draper style, we kicked off proceedings with Manhattens & Whiskey

Jules raided her mum’s house for genuine 60s furniture and bits

Clare bought a one-off 50s vintage dress from an impressively eccentric, berret’d lady at bohemian The Final Curtain in Headingley

Back playing games with Martini – but this time the proper cocktail [4 parts gin to 1 part vermouth]

Rank

Our host Jules, in her 50s frock!

Starter: 50s Egg Mayonnaise!

I spotted these piped spuds as they came out t’oven!

Mains: Beef Bourguignon

Mum’s Retro whisk

Making…

Baked Alaska!  Happy days.  Anything with cake & ice cream is good with me.

In a homage to Mad Men’s lighting style I decided to take my two Quadra flash heads and try the front side softbox / back hair light look against Jules & Tom’s retro wallpaper.

Work it.

Tommy

and I, flexing my tweed & g-man bins

The housewives!

This is actually Jules’ cookbook.

Jules dress was ace.  She wore it to a wedding.

Another ace prop from Jules &  Tom’s home.

They actually used this phone until recently, but it’s been made redundant as call centres need touch tone, not twirly dial.

Still nursing a martini

Jules had this image in mind for the invite.

It’s all about the side parting!

Anyhoos – it was loads of fun eating 50s grub & playing dress up, so i thought I’d share.