There’s also something about Hair, Makeup, and Wardrobe that, when applied to standards of a bygone era, make me think someone is much older than I am. Rarely could I watch Mad Men without looking at Don Draper as some square dad who might hire me to mow his lawn… and Jon Hamm is nearly a year and a half younger than I am. Even Season One Don, when Hamm was 36, looks older than I, myself, perceive myself to be. Which is strange, I realize. I’m 46. I have plenty of gray in my beard, and a regrettably decent-size spare tire. But look at my avatar: that’s me. And yet I look at young Don Draper and see, essentially, my dad’s generation, due mostly to wardrobe styling and good acting. And the fact that men of Draper’s generation weren’t encouraged to wear jeans and concert tee shirts, drink Dr Pepper instead of scotch and soda, or let their hair grow out. Apparently those pre-Baby Boomers became the Square In The Gray Flannel Suit at 22 or thereabouts.
Most of the old ones (up to mid-60s by my particular yardstick) look to me like they’re firmly of that older generation, born between the World Wars, and the youngest of which would be entering her 70s now. But I was struck by how Connie Cooper (Miss January '61) looked like she’d stepped right out of a time machine from twenty years in her future. She’s styled like a dead ringer for Phoebe Cates circa Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And the look of that era (1982ish) is right around the time I really began to appreciate the female form, and that aesthetic has always worked for me ever since. Could be that just as the music we love in our high school years often stays our favorite, so do the body shapes and styles we first got turned on by during puberty.
I was reminded of this when Brütal Legend came out. Those Razor Girls? Totally do it for me. Takes me right back to 7th grade.
