January Jones July 2010 California Style Summer

Mad Men’s January Jones is thoroughly modern on the cover and inside C for California Style Magazine’s Summer 2010 issue. Photographed by Matthias Vriens-McGrath and styled by Elizabeth Stewart.

January shakes off her 1960’s Betty ‘Housewife’ Draper persona and talks about of all things swimming with sharks, being her own stylist and being Yves Saint Laurent’s Stefano Pilati’s muse!

Inside January insists the cast and crew of Mad Men are not getting complacent: “I think we collectively, as the cast, writers and creators, feel very lucky that it’s had so much success, but now more than ever, we have a reputation to uphold and a level of work we have to keep meeting, so there’s a lot of pressure on us,” Jones says

Her idea of a really good time is swimming with sharks. Literally. As part of her role as a spokeswoman for Oceana, she headed off to Belize to dive with endangered sharks: “There’s a certain adrenaline rush and there has to be a bit of fear that goes with it,” she says of swimming with the predatory fish. “There’s also a bit of excitement.”

One could say the same thing about working in Hollywood: “I still feel like I’m a fish out of water,” says Jones. “I don’t think you can allow yourself to feel comfortable because success can be taken away from you. You have to keep working like every day is your last.”