So you’ve got yesterday’s Don Draper, faded and opaque in a light summer suit, about to cross Madison Avenue while the new 1968 version of Don (as last season ended in the summer of ’67 with Nancy Sinatra singing “You Only Live Twice“), more sharply defined and perhaps a bit more aggressive, stepping up to the curb. The old Don is saying, “Whoa…did I just pass myself?” The new Don is saying, “Whatever, let it go…this is now and I’m running the show.”
Sooner or later Don is going to have to start growing his hair a little longer, or at least the beginnings of modest sideburns. By ’68 even straight-laced ad execs had started to loosen up and unbutton from the early ’60s button-down style, which was half-inherited from the JFK attitude and half from Sloan Wilson‘s The Man in the Gray-Flannel Suit.
