Vitals

Jon Hamm as Don Draper, 40-year-old remarried ad man

New York City, June 1966

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “A Little Kiss, Part 1” (Episode 5.01)
Air Date: March 25, 2012
Director: Jennifer Getzinger
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Mad Men‘s fifth season double-episode premiere “A Little Kiss” begins on Memorial Day 1966 and follows through the next weekend, when Don Draper’s new wife Megan (Jessica Paré) curiously decides to throw her husband a surprise 40th birthday party… despite knowing literally anything about him.

During their tense all-nighter at the office in the previous season’s landmark episode “The Suitcase” (Episode 4.07), Don himself had told Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) that “it’s time to get over birthdays,” so Peggy and the audience can be sure that the serious ad man isn’t going to react well when he and Megan return home on Saturday night to their apartment full of friends and colleagues. The celebration takes a deeper unwelcome turn—at least for Don, whose soul is observed leaving his body—toward spectacle when Megan commands the room’s attention to her sultry performance of the French Yé-yé song “Zou Bisou Bisou”.

Roughly translated into English as “Oh! Kiss Kiss”—hence the episode’s title—the song was introduced in 1960 with separate recordings by Gillian Hills and Sophia Loren. Paré worked with choreographer Marianne Ann Kellogg to finesse the dance routine that would bemuse Don while bewitching some of his colleagues—especially the increasingly lecherous Harry Crane (Rich Sommer).

Don’s aversion to attention and birthdays signals an increasing divide between the newlyweds, though fans will also remember that he did use his birthday to elicit some horny sympathy from a fetching flight attendant two seasons earlier in the third-season premiere “Out of Town”. That episode was also set two months earlier on April 3, 1963, so when Don tells Megan “I’ve been 40 for half a year,” he could be exaggerating while also informing us that the real Dick Whitman’s birthday is April 3, 1926 and that, as part of adopting the Don Draper persona, he co-opted his old lieutenant’s actual June 1st birthday but updated the year—likely from 1917, given his conversation with Pete at the end of the first season—to match his true age.

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What’d He Wear?

Mad Men‘s second episode “Ladies Room” (Episode 1.02) had established a preferred template for Don Draper’s Saturday evenings out in the city, an aesthetic that would be repeated for this sequence in “A Little Kiss”, exchanging his dark office suits and white shirts for lighter gray sport jackets and pale-blue shirts—albeit still with the requisite tie and hat.

Appropriate for the situation and season over a warm Memorial Day weekend in New York City, Don wears a dressed-down straw trilby rather than his businesslike felt trilby. Even though men’s business hats were increasingly less fashionable by the mid-1960s—symbolized by the youthful aura around JFK’s presidential administration at the beginning of the decade—Don had studied the norms of male conformity during the ’50s and thus continues wearing hats even as the rest of his style gradually adapts to meet the times.

This Pinzano hat is made from a gray-blue Milan straw with a narrow 1 7/8″-wide brim and a black band around the base of its 4″-tall crown, bisected by a fancy lavender bar stripe and two lines of fainter stripes around the top and bottom. The hat was among the many costumes and props included in the ScreenBid auction after the series ended in 2015. Don wore this hat through the last four seasons of Mad Men, including with another sports coat during the trip to Disneyland in the previous season’s finale that ended with his surprise proposal to Megan.

Many of the male guests at Don’s surprise party are dressed in bold plaid jackets, from Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) in his multi-colored tartan jacket to Roger Sterling (John Slattery) in a groovy mustard glen plaid. Don had already modeled some more traditional checked sport jackets through the first four seasons, though he doesn’t fully embrace the busier plaids of the late ’60s until after Megan entices him to wear that internet-breaking red, black, and white sports coat to the Campbells’ dinner party later in the fifth season.

So, for now, Don retreats behind the comfortably conservative reserve of gray tailoring that costume designer Janie Bryant told me served as his “suit of armor”. For the date night-turned-birthday bash, this means a light-gray sport jacket likely made from a high-twist wool or wool-silk blend, woven with slub yarns that add dimension against the unique marled effect.

The single-breasted jacket otherwise follows conventional tailoring queues, with fashionably slim lapels cut with narrow notches that roll to a two-button front which Don wears with the top button fastened until he peels the jacket off ahead of Megan’s performance. The shoulders are lightly padded, maintaining a strong but natural silhouette, with some chest drape and waist suppression. The sleeves are finished with three-button cuffs, and the back has a single vent. The straight hip pockets are covered with flaps, and Don keeps the welted breast pocket undressed—as opposed to how he typically adorns his business suits with a pocket square.

Don’s pale-blue diamond-textured cotton shirt follows the jacket’s direction by also presenting a touch of tonal complexity rather than being completely solid-colored. However, the differences between this and his white office shirts end there, as the design maintains the same semi-spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs—with additional gauntlet buttons—as well as the requisite breast pocket for his deck of cigarettes (now Old Golds, after SCDP lost the Lucky Strike account!) He fastens the cuffs with round gold cuff links with “V”-shaped etchings on them.

He wears a regimental-striped tie that follows the American “downhill” direction with its wide blue, black, and forest-green block stripes, each with alternating yellow and pale-blue border stripes. The straight and narrow tie harmonizes with the width of his jacket’s lapels and neatly meets the top of his trouser waistband.

Don smartly contrasts his light-gray sport jacket with darker charcoal wool flat-front trousers, styled with side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs). He holds them up with his usual slim black leather belt that closes through a monogrammed gold-toned rectangular box-style buckle.

The belt leather coordinates to his polished black calf split-toe derby shoes, appropriately worn with black cotton lisle dress socks that maintain the leg-lines from his charcoal slacks.

This fifth-season premiere debuted the elegant Omega Seamaster DeVille ref. 166.020 that Don would wear in most episodes through the end of the series—save for the gold Movado he briefly wore at the start of the sixth season while his Omega was ostensibly being repaired.

This vintage DeVille powered by Omega’s cal. 560 automatic movement has a slim stainless steel 34.5mm-wide case, black gloss cross-hair dial with luminous hands and magnified date aperture at the 3 o’clock position, and an 18mm-wide black textured leather strap.  Mad Men property master Ellen Freund worked with vintage watch specialist Derek Dier to dress the characters’ wrists, with Don’s 1960 Omega among four screen-worn watches auctioned by Christie’s in December 2015.

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How to Get the Look

Don Draper’s “out of office” wardrobe still projects a professionalism dressier than most modern workplaces, softening his typical charcoal and navy tones with a light-gray jacket and pale-blue shirt, paired with a striped repp tie that pulls the palette together while preserving its era-informed decorum.

• Light-gray slubbed wool single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with narrow notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
• Pale-blue diamond-textured cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and double/French cuffs
• Blue, black, and forest-green wide block-striped tie with alternating yellow and pale-blue border stripes
• Charcoal wool flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather belt with monogrammed gold rectangular box-style buckle
• Black calf leather split-toe derby shoes
• Black cotton lisle dress socks
• White cotton short-sleeved undershirt
• Omega Seamaster DeVille wristwatch with stainless 34mm case, textured black crocodile strap, and black dial with date indicator

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the whole series.

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The Quote

I don’t like to be the center of attention.

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The Astro Zone

Astrologists would recognize the almost obvious meaning behind Don’s adopted June 1st birthday falling within Gemini season—an air sign symbolized by the “twins” and often derided as being two-faced and flighty, suggesting Don’s dual identities and tendency to run away from situations. (With all due respect to any of my readers born between mid-May and mid-June—I’m sure you all demonstrate only the best aspects of Gemini behavior!)

Interestingly, June 1st is exactly one week after Peggy Olson’s May 25th birthday (as we learned in the previous season’s “The Suitcase”) suggesting that perhaps Don and Peggy are the Gemini twins—cosmically, if never romantically, linked.

But what about Dick Whitman himself? I theorized in the “Background” section above that Dick’s real birthday is the April 3rd date that he shared with the amorous flight attendant in “Out of Town” (Episode 3.01), which would actually make the real Dick/Don an Aries. This fire sign is often defined by its passion, which can manifest as dedication to work… or impulsive choices like abandoning said job in the middle of a meeting or a business trip.