Tagged: Jon Hamm
Mad Men: Don Draper’s Casual Picnic Clothes
Jon Hamm and January Jones on Mad Men (Episode 2.07: “The Gold Violin”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, affluent ad man and Korean War veteran
Ossining, New York, Summer 1962
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “The Gold Violin” (Episode 2.07)
Air Date: September 7, 2008
Director: Andrew Bernstein
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Following yesterday’s observance of National Picnic Day, I wanted to focus on one of my favorite on-screen picnics. Midway through the second season of Mad Men, the Draper family spends part of a sunny Sunday afternoon bringing a Norman Rockwell painting to life.
By mid-century standards, advertising executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) appears to illustrate the American dream, providing for his beautiful wife Betty (January Jones) and their two children and having just acquired a sleek new Cadillac that—as was pitched to him—indicates that he’s “already arrived.” Life looks easy for the family, reclining with nary a care in the world as The Pentagons serenade them from the Coupe de Ville’s radio with their dulcet 1962 B-side “I’m in Love”.
Betty: We should do this more often.
Don: We should only do this.
Don Draper’s Dinner Party Plaid Jacket in “Signal 30”
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men, Episode 5.05: “Signal 30”. From photo by Michael Yarish/AMC.
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, smooth ad man
Cos Cob, Connecticut, Summer 1966
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Signal 30” (Episode 5.05)
Air Date: April 15, 2012
Director: John Slattery
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
To commemorate Jon Hamm’s 51st birthday today, let’s return to his Emmy-winning performance as the conflicted advertising director Don Draper. After four stylish seasons set across the early ’60s, Mad Men‘s fifth season took a darker and experimental turn with its storytelling, reflective of the more disturbing events of a decade that was evolving from the idealistic ’50s into an violent age of assassinations, serial murder, and war.
Following the dark “Mystery Date” with its homicidal fever dreams and Richard Speck references, the fifth episode “Signal 30” took its title from the gruesome instructional film illustrating the dangers of the road, shown to new drivers like Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s ambitious but insecure account manager, who could be argued as the central character of this episode.
Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner described “Signal 30″—which he co-wrote with Dog Day Afternoon‘s Oscar-winning screenwriter Frank Pierson—as “probably the saddest episode we’ve ever had.”
Directed by series regular John Slattery, “Signal 30” is an episode of plumbing mishaps and forbidden passions, culminating in office fisticuffs. These passions range from Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) continuing his literary side hustle against the wishes of his employers, Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) fighting his own battles with personal and professional masculinity, a business trip to a brothel where all attendees but Don indulge themselves, and Pete’s disturbing crush on a teenage girl in his driver’s ed class.
But before Pete lecherously throws himself at anything on legs—or throws any punches at colleagues—he and his delightful wife Trudy (Alison Brie) welcome the Drapers and Cosgroves for a dinner party. Perhaps appropriate for the only season of Mad Men where we don’t see him engaging in extramarital romance, Don allows his new wife Megan (Jessica Paré) to talk him into swapping his staid suit jacket out for a loudly checked sports coat more on trend for the middle of the swingin’ sixties. Continue reading
Don Draper’s Gingham Sports Coat in “Tomorrowland”
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 4.13: “Tomorrowland”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, Madison Avenue ad man
Anaheim, California, October 1965
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Tomorrowland” (Episode 4.13)
Air Date: October 17, 2010
Director: Matthew Weiner
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Sixty-six years ago today, Walt Disney introduced the world to “the happiest place on Earth” during a televised press event on July 17, 1955. Disneyland Park opened just one year and a day after construction began in Anaheim, California, and the sprawling theme park remains the only one completed under Disney’s direct supervision.
“Tomorrow can be a wonderful age,” Disney began when unveiling Tomorrowland, one of the nine themed “lands” that Disneyland is comprised of. “The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future.”
While we never actually get to see the Draper family visiting the park during their vacation in Mad Men‘s fourth-season finale, the episode’s title that we’re seeing Don forming the living blueprint for his own future, most significantly by rejecting the smart and nurturing Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) to propose marriage to his bright-eyed young secretary Megan (Jessica Paré). After all, this is the man who prides himself on the fact that his life only moves in one direction: forward. Continue reading
Mad Men: Don’s Blue Knit Golf Shirt for Memorial Day
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 2.06: “Maidenform”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious ad man and Korean War veteran
Ossining, New York, Spring 1962
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Maidenform” (Episode 2.06)
Air Date: August 31, 2008
Director: Phil Abraham
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
It’s Memorial Day weekend on Mad Men, and the Drapers and their Ossining neighbors gather at the Willow Oaks Golf Club’s annual Ribs and Fashion Show to bemoan their self-described “high-class problems” ranging from the sticky summer from when the Rosenbergs were murdered to taking the fall for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Among the elite in their tennis whites and the veterans in their aging uniforms, Don’s simple and timeless knit shirt and trousers has been frequently requested as a popular look from the fashion series, despite only appearing in this one episode.
Mad Men: Don’s Embroidered Brown Shirt for the First of “Three Sundays”
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 2.04: “Three Sundays”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious ad man and wannabe family man
Ossining, New York, Spring 1962
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Three Sundays” (Episode 2.04)
Air Date: August 17, 2008
Director: Tim Hunter
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The anthological fourth episode of Mad Men‘s second season checks in with our regulars—particularly Don Draper and Peggy Olsen—with explorations of parenting and piety leading up to Easter Sunday 1962.
Mad Men: Don Draper’s Decade of Black Tie
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 1.05: “5G”).
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, mysterious and award-winning Madison Avenue ad man
Series: Mad Men
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
Background
Only three days left in 2020! The tradition of gents wearing black tie on New Year’s Eve, popularized in movies like the 1960 Rat Pack classic Ocean’s Eleven, seems to have fallen out of favor among the general population as standards of formality have decreased. However, given how excited many will be to see 2020 come to an end may herald a resurgence in dinner jackets and tuxedoes as many celebrate the new year in private.
On #MadMenMonday, we can take a few style tips from the enigmatic Don Draper on assembling a classic black tie ensemble from his half-dozen screen-worn dinner jackets. Continue reading
Mad Men: Burgundy Knitwear for Don Draper’s Lonely Thanksgiving
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 4.01: “Public Relations”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, lonely ad man
Greenwich Village, New York, Thanksgiving 1964
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Public Relations” (Episode 4.01)
Air Date: July 25, 2010
Director: Phil Abraham
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
In contrast to the swaggering image he presents as an advertising hot shot, Don Draper has been reduced to a very lonely man at the start of Mad Men‘s fourth season.
Don Draper’s Teal-and-Turquoise Shirt in “Tomorrowland”
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 4.13: “Tomorrowland”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, Madison Avenue ad man
Anaheim, California, October 1965
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Tomorrowland” (Episode 4.13)
Air Date: October 17, 2010
Director: Matthew Weiner
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
During my latest Mad Men rewatch while on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, I found myself so intrigued by the fourth season finale that I watched the episode back-to-back. For a show set so far into the past, it’s amazing how effective Mad Men can be at stirring a viewer’s enthusiasm for the future.
Don Draper’s Plaid Party Jacket in “The Runaways”
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.05: “The Runaways”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, conflicted ad man
Los Angeles, Spring 1969
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “The Runaways” (Episode 7.05)
Air Date: May 11, 2014
Director: Christopher Manley
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Despite being one of the most popular shows in the streaming service’s stable of non-original content, today marks the last day that Mad Men is available to Netflix subscribers in the U.S. The first part of Mad Men‘s seventh and final season spends time with displaced ad man Don Draper as he travels from coast to coast by plane, juggling his professional aspirations in New York with his slowly stagnating marriage in L.A.
The geographic reversal is interesting, not only in the context of Mad Men but also in the east vs. west trope espoused by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Henry David Thoreau, as we’re used to seeing Don romanticizing California even when professionally soaring through the ranks of Madison Avenue’s advertising world. Now, his position has shifted with decided roots in L.A. via second wife Megan (Jessica Paré) taking up residence in Laurel Canyon to further her acting career while, back in New York, he’s been reduced to a glorified intern at the agency he helped to start… and that’s just in the eyes of those who are comfortable working with him.
Mad Men, 1970 Style – Don’s Finale Flannel
Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men (Episode 7.14: “Person to Person”)
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Don Draper, former ad man in search of himself
“Somewhere in California”, Fall 1970
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “Person to Person” (Episode 7.14)
Air Date: May 17, 2015
Director: Matthew Weiner
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Five years ago today, Mad Men‘s final episode “Person to Person” aired on AMC, concluding a decade’s worth of storytelling as we followed advertising director Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his family and colleagues as they navigated the tumultuous 1960s.