It's A Mad World

It is one of life's great ironies that history repeats itself in a cyclical fashion.

The baby-boomer generation spent much of the 1960s and 70s trying to dissociate themselves from a more restrictive 1950s-society. Today, Generations X and Y, are rebelling as well, but they are doing so by embracing the very symbol of baby-boomer oppression: the necktie.

Recent studies have shown that the today's youth have adopted a style of dressing that stylistically mimics the world of Sterling-Cooper. For all you non-Mad Men devotees, what that means is that, these days the well-off 55-year-old is likely to be the worst-dressed man in the room, wearing a saggy T-shirt and jeans. While the cash-poor 25-year-old is in a sport coat and skinny tie.

Young men are embracing the "Mad Men" elements of style in a way that the older men never did, still don't and just won't. The result is a kind of rift emerging between the generation of men in their 20s and 30s and those in their late 40s and 50s for whom a suit was square and caring about how one looked was effeminate.

So, while the older generation looks at success as being able to dress down, the younger generation defines it by looking sharp. So which is it?

The answer: it does not really matter. What "Mad Men" has done is give an entire generation of men a Carrie Bradshaw-type figure. Don Draper and his pal Roger Sterling embody everything today's modern man hopes to acquire: success, wealth and bourbon.

Don't believe us? American Apparel sells bow-ties...and they sell very well. And stores like Brooks Brothers have actually experienced a bump in sales in a time when most retailers have seen better days. (Brooks Brothers even has a "Mad Men" Exclusive Suit).

So, this only leads to one conclusion: gentleman are making a comeback. And that's just fine with us.