Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) in the TV series Mad Men has become an icon of corporate style.
The jeans-and-hoodie look was well and good when Zuckerberg was at Harvard and in the early stages of Facebook, but now that he has hit the jackpot and made every rich list, sartorial maturity is in order. Perhaps something bespoke from Tom Ford. Or something Italian from Brunello Cucinelli. Or if those two are a stretch style-wise, perhaps a preppy ensemble from Michael Bastian. Anything but the hoodie. He's a grown man running a global empire and clothes associated with drunken frat parties and beer pong do not make the cut.
The new suit is cut slimmer and and flatters the masculine form, as seen at Dolce and Gabbana, and Ermenegildo Zegna
Zuckerberg could benefit from watching Mad Men - the show about dapper advertising men, which has become a sartorial reference for many guys. Mad Men brought back the grey suit to the office-wear vernacular - precisely tailored with slim lapels and almost always worn with a crisp white shirt. Tie bars and fedoras optional. Though this was the look of the 1950s, it resonated with a new generation of men looking for a new way to present themselves in a corporate setting after the big crash of 2008, especially after a couple of seasons of pyjama-dressing from labels like Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and Salvatore Ferragamo.
After the economic downturn of 2008, the former wheeling-and-dealing corporate shark who only flew private was suddenly an unemployed stay-at-home dad because of market crashes and Bernie Madoff. Suits became anachronisms for the days of big bonuses and fat expense accounts, out of place in a world that saw firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapse.
But this wasn't the first time that suits fell out of favour in the office setting. The dot-com era of the '90s rendered the power suit of the '80s out of sync with the changing economic landscape.
