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©AMC/courtesy Everett Collection
Fashion


15 YEARS ON FROM MAD MEN, THE DON DRAPER EFFECT IS DEAD IN MENSWEAR 

…Or is it? As the creators of Mad Men celebrate its anniversary, Finlay Renwick
looks at how the show's iconic looks fell out of favour, and wonders if a
resurgence could be around the corner

By Finlay Renwick

25 July 2022


The first time we encounter Don Draper, he’s sat in the dim corner of a
Manhattan bar — a location that will quickly become familiar to viewers. Dark
hair pomaded, chiseled face cleanly shaven, eyes tired and a bit sorrowful, he
silently jots down notes on the back of a napkin. 



He’s wearing a grey wool suit a shade lighter than charcoal, with thick lapels
and wide shoulders, a clean white point collar poplin shirt cinched with an
ivory and black repp silk tie. He orders an Old Fashioned, looking the picture
of an expensive and aspirational mid-century American man: suited, booted,
self-possessed, half cut and hiding something.



©AMC/courtesy Everett Collection

A decade and half on from its pilot episode, no TV show has had as much impact
on men’s style as Mad Men (with honourable mention to Tony Sopranos’s
tracksuits, silky shirts, depressioncore robes and shiny SUVs). Arriving on the
cusp of the 2008 recession and a period of great global uncertainty, the show
referred back to a time of American optimism and abundance. The Midtown offices,
Rothkos on the walls, idling town cars, moon landings, impromptu escapes to
Malibu and a big house in the suburbs. In post-war, white collar America men
wore suits and gabardine coats, even on the weekends. Men got dressed, and they
also possessed deeply sad interior lives, but they got dressed. “Don’s colour
palette is all about masculinity, seduction and mystery,” Mad Men’s costume
designer, Janie Bryant, told Forbes. “I always felt like all of those grey suits
were like his armour. That suit, it protects him.”


©AMC/courtesy Everett Collection

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Charlie Heaton reacts to Stranger Things season 4: "It just adds to the chaos of
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“You shouldn’t be lionising this guy or at least holding him up as a paramount
of virtue,” Jon Hamm told the Guardian in 2013, later calling his greatest
creation “dismal and despicable,” but a lot of us did. Draper’s rise to pop
culture prominence – the so-called Don Draper Effect, or Madmenalaria – was one
of the key drivers behind the #menswear wave of the 2010s, the too-tailored
suits, pocket squares, monk-strap shoes, whisky rocks, tie bars and high and
tight haircuts. 


©AMC/courtesy Everett Collection

Looking at the clothes of Mad Men from the vantage point of Madison Avenue in
2022, it all feels faintly ridiculous. Since we left Don in a billowy white
shirt on a California cliff edge – as he drifts off to Nirvana, or somewhere
bleaker – the men’s fashion landscape is markedly different. Suits, while
certainly not dead, have been softened and redefined, worn with t-shirts, or
open collars, unstructured and elasticated. JP Morgan no longer has a dress
code, and no one really goes to the office that much anyway. The contemporary
workplace, as portrayed by the likes of Succession and Industry, shows the new
uniforms of soft power: finance institution-branded quilted vests, Lanvin
trainers, Loro Piana cashmere jumpers and a sea of muted tones and unlined and
unstructured European tailoring. Every single world leader photographed at the
recent G7 summit in Germany wore plain dark suits and white shirts with open
collars. Not a tie in sight. The tailored ‘armour’ of Sterling Cooper Draper
Pryce no longer seems that aspirational, it’s just period dress. An anachronism
from a bygone era.

But things can change quickly. Logomania has faded, trainers seem a bit naff and
a new recession threatens. The New York Times has, in recent months, claimed
that both Midtown and smoking are making a comeback and that Gen Z has
discovered the charms of old school cocktail bars. The kind of bars where a man
in a grey flannel suit might order an Old Fashioned at 4pm on a Wednesday.






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