The suit is medium grey, single-breasted with a narrow lapel and two-button fastening, worn with a white pocket square at the breast. The trousers are slim cut, form-fitting without being skinny. The shirt is white, pristine, with semi-cutaway collar and a grey tie carrying a small knot. The shoes are highly polished black wingtips. The overall look is businesslike, but against most conventional office attire, slick, distinctive and now widely copied. So just who is this boardroom dandy? A Milanese fashion designer? A Hollywood idol? The name is, appropriately enough, Draper, Don Draper – the lead protagonist from the hit US TV series Mad Men, set in the stylish ad agency world of the early 1960s.

The series has won its costume designer Janie Bryant plaudits and prompted her to produce a spin-off style guide, The Fashion File. There are limited-edition Mad Men collections for QVC and Brooks Brothers – which also makes costumes for the actors – and the show has inspired a line from Banana Republic. Small wonder, really. With mid-century modern the definitive take on the modernist retro aesthetic, the show has become a touchstone of reference for not only contemporary interiors and womenswear – with Louis Vuitton, Prada and Marc Jacobs among designers who are now pursuing the curvy, full-skirted, tight-topped and nipped waist look of the period (see panel, right) – but, more unusually perhaps, of menswear too. The look has been emulated on the catwalks by the likes of Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors, with the sack suit of Pete Campbell (another Mad Men character) and the three-piece suits of Bertram Cooper (a partner in the show’s fictional advertising company) also current.

“The series has been a timely reminder that a man can look sexy through dressing up rather than dressing down, which became the thought of the 1970s,” says Umberto Angeloni, ex-CEO of Brioni and now owner of Italian tailoring house Raffaele Caruso. “But the show’s men’s wardrobe also offers a liberating idea to many viewers who have to wear a suit: that business dress has the potential to be pared down, streamlined and chic.”

If consumers typically return to traditional, conservative values during a recession, then the Mad Men style echoes the mood. It is of a period when, as Angeloni puts it, “clothes were very sexually defined – men looked like men, women like women and there was no unisex”. But perhaps more than this, the menswear is especially appealing precisely because the era also shaped the definitive suiting standard, around which all others are variations. Fitting is as a tailor would dictate, with the fastening button at the natural waist and trousers sitting here too; proportions – of, for example, the jacket length or lapel width – do not play to extremes; and the tailoring defines the body without being uncomfortable.

Tailor Mark Powell, whose credits include the films Absolute Beginners (set in the late 50s) and Gangster No.1 (set in the early 60s), adds that every period undergoes revival, with the 60s now echoed both in bespoke and top-end tailoring circles; from Angeloni’s own new label Uman to the recently relaunched tailoring house Douglas Hayward, whose late founder dressed Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair.

Indeed, Powell stresses that the period, more than any other, has defined a certain jazzy cool, echoed in the style cinema of the time: the look of early James Bond, The Ipcress File and another Manhattan adman, Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant in North by Northwest. The look is also that of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack and JFK, among the most fashion-influential men of the 20th century. Designer Tom Ford’s recent directorial debut A Single Man plays to the same mood.

“Mad Men’s costume design is highly visible. The suits have their own narrative, with Don Draper’s in particular deconstructing elegantly according to his mood. It’s encouraged the rise of ‘dressing up’ again,” suggests Chris Laverty, editor of the influential Clothesonfilm.com website. “With a character as overtly masculine as Draper the message is that it’s OK for men to care about their appearance again. But it’s also hard to separate the appeal of the clothes from that of what is now a fantasy masculine lifestyle – of a time when white-collar men could drink hard liquor at work and smoke as much as they pleased. The style is another form of role-play.”

Alessandro Sartori, designer for Ermenegildo Zegna, is less sure, arguing that the early 60s is one of the few period styles in men’s tailoring that appeals not only because of its masculinity, but “because it always looks up to date, unlike references to the extremes of the 70s, or the power-dressing of the 80s, which worn now can look like costume”. Indeed, he sees the period as enduringly influential in menswear. Not only did it introduce the idea that accessories were an important aspect of male attire – which Mad Men captures in its appreciation of glasses, hats, ties, bow-ties, collar-pins and handkerchiefs – but it was the first time during the post-war consumer boom that, however muted, menswear embraced colour and pattern: Mad Men’s dove grey, petrol blue, sharkskin and tattersall check.

But will the fashion froth around the show last? “The obvious Mad Men references of skinny ties and lapels are having their day now, even if they are atypical in being a style you could take straight from the set and not look out of place wearing in any office,” says London-based bespoke tailor Tony Lutwyche. “But I guess that means watching the next series. Even in Mad Men the fashion evolves.”

Mad Women

Anybody watching the Autumn/Winter 2010 fashion shows this year would have been forgiven for doing a double take. Are we in the right place – are we even in the right era? The runway resembled a corridor of Sterling Cooper, Mad Men’s fictional Madison Avenue ad agency.

Models with waspish waists, full skirts and figure-hugging dresses slinked down the catwalks in a variety of early-60s styles. At Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs was inspired by the Brigitte Bardot film And God Created Woman to send out a collection that would make elegant housewife Betty Draper swoon: high-waist, mid-calf length skirts paired with cinched-in jackets and round or slash-necked tops, block heels and preppy ponytails. At Prada, it was a similar story, with a demure 50s/60s style given 21st-century oomph with slinky materials, tight bodices, big hair and killer curves.

Thanks to the combination of smart and sexy, these outfits work well for the office. Pair a long or knee- length skirt with some killer heels and swap your usual smart jacket for one with a tighter waist, encircled with a narrow belt and worn over a demure cami or twin set.

Betty Draper might be the show’s epitome of pretty, feminine style, but it is Joan Holloway/Harris who holds her own in the office. Her curve-clinging dresses resonate with designers such as Victoria Beckham, who celebrate a smart, feminine style. The A/W10 collection features slim waists, fitted hips and knee-length hemlines alongside drape fittings and corsetry. A long-sleeved, drape-neck red number is just the thing for winter smart, while a clinging, high-neck, draped-back dress in sapphire adds a little Joan sex appeal to a demure cut.

Everyone’s favourite office manager’s signature pencil skirts are also out in force; classic in cashmere and wool at Yves Saint Laurent, form-fitting in crepe at Roland Mouret or modern and daring in asymmetric leopard print at Vivienne Westwood. With a button-up cardigan or a tight-fit shirt, it’s the perfect Joanie silhouette.

Outdoors, straight wool coats, fur trims, preppy Peggy Olson-style trenches and animal print jackets are all making an appearance. Pair with big, neat hair, heeled pumps and a Louis Vuitton Speedy bag and you’re good to go. By Lauren Steventon