Mad About Mad Men, Not Ad Men

 I write this in my fitted sheath dress, sitting on my vintage Knoll sofa, sipping a cocktail. Don Draper is nowhere in sight. Therein lies the reality.

Banana Republic is launching not just a Mad Men-enthused campaign, but an actual Mad Men line. Which is incredible cross marketing, since we are months and months away from a new Mad Men episode - trust me, I'm counting. So this keeps Don, Betty, Pete and everyone else on our brains without the pithy dialog and sketchy plot twists that have keep us riveted.

But herein lies the sour in Don's Canadian Club - Banana's ads do NOT feature that god of the small screen, Jon Hamm, but some milk-toast male model. In the women's ads, the model sort of looks like some uptight mid-century housewife you'd want to avoid during afternoon drinks at the pool club.

So if I'm a guy, I'm not going to trot out and buy a fitted gray suit and some Bryle Creme, so I sort of look like Jon Hamm, am I? And where is Christina Hendricks and her hourglass figure when we need her? If 70 percent of America is over a size 18, have they blown their chance?

Now don't get me wrong - I'm convinced America's downfall (and weight gain) began when we started thinking sweatpants were OK outside the gym. When you have to answer to an actual waistband, and not stretchy elastic, you put down the Ho-Hos.

But do we really need to rehash the '60s? If there's anything Mad Men tells us, it tells us those were not our glory days. Can we learn from our mistakes, but still dress well?

That idea of dressing for the job you want - that's real. The untold number of college graduates who went to class in pajamas - they'll have difficulty becoming the upwardly mobile Peggy Olsons. They have no clue how to get dressed for a job interview. I think if President Obama got Michele to work as the Wardrobe Czar, we would see a giant uptick in the unemployment rate. Oh, how I wish I was kidding.

I learned to sew from vintage 1960 patterns. I came across a stash of them as a teenager, and it was like I discovered gold - they had seams, darts and they fit!

It was amazing - I was a mod Marlo Thomas, going to a Go-Go's concert. I was a grown-up, in fitted clothes. It made me feel very important, worldly and wise.

I still dress that way, informed, polished, but not some rehash of 1960. That was then, and this is now, and this is not 1961.

So Banana, put a fresh face on fashion. Or at least hire Jon Hamm to distract me.