HOLLYWOOD — "There's something to be said for making an effort. Buttoning your buttons and tying your tie and matching your belt to your shoes," says Jon Hamm, as he sips a glass of Rittenhouse rye on the rocks. He shrugs. "Hey, women do it every day, right?"

Hamm — who is either the next George Clooney or the reincarnation of Gary Cooper, depending on whom you ask — should know. He plays the cryptic but dapper Don Draper on the AMC series "Mad Men." And if you watch the smart and ultra-stylish show that takes place at a hungry Manhattan advertising agency in 1960, you already know Hamm's signature flinty squint and his well-tailored suits.

After the show's Season 1 finale Thursday night, we already miss it, in part for its slavish attention to visual nuance and fashion. At the Sterling Cooper Agency, men arrive every morning as sleek as dolphins, with pomaded coifs, clean-shaven cheeks and shiny wingtips.

The women on the show look great, too, although their pencil skirts, sweater sets and tight-as-fists chignons feel more like the contents of a sartorial time capsule. (Never mind the fact that the blatant sexism they endure as secretaries dates them as much as their conical bras.)

While the men may reek of chauvinism (not to mention Scotch and cigarettes) they also look, well, amazingly modern.

In fact, Draper could do for the three-button glen plaid suit what Paulie Walnuts did for the zip-up velour tracksuit. GQ just ran an article on how to cop the "Mad Men" style, and retail research firm NPD Group reports that sales of suits and blazers are up more than 50 percent for men ages 18 to 24. Maybe that statistic explains the sudden shuttering of two more adolescent "laddie" magazines — FHM and Stuff — in the past year.

Could it be that that virility is making a comeback? On the red carpet, we've got Clooney, Ryan Gosling and Benicio del Toro sporting enough facial hair to knit a sweater vest. Gucci's new Pour Homme fragrance has enough cedar for a lumberjack. A 157-year-old bottle of rare Scotch whiskey sold for $60,000 last month and set an auction record.

Even the term "metrosexual" had better watch its waxed back. A new buzzword — "menergy" — is muscling its way into the cultural lexicon to describe the ultra-masculinity in designer menswear.

"A man's man wouldn't care if he got called a metrosexual. He would say, 'That's right. I'm wearing French cuffs — so what?' " says Hamm, 36, who's decked out in his own blue pinstriped Paul Smith suit with purple silk lining, sky-blue dress shirt and cap toe oxfords. "I'm not into pampering, but a guy going to a spa isn't exactly new either. Getting a steam dates back to the Roman days."

Hamm could be the poster man for the evolved alpha male movement. The St. Louis native and former high school teacher is smart, witty and handsome in a rugged, classic way. You get the sense that he's comfortable extracting escargot or building a campfire. Case in point: Over a recent afternoon cocktail at the swank Tower Bar in West Hollywood, he politely excuses himself to tend to a shoulder injury.

"I dislocated it playing tennis, but my doctor taught me how to pop it back in. I just have to make an adjustment, and I'm fine," he explains, after returning triumphant. OK, so this man breaks sometimes. But he can fix himself.

On "Mad Men," which returns in summer 2008, Draper and his colleagues are hyper-masculine, but no apologies are made for their dandy accents: tie tacks, signet rings, skinny ties. Stingy brim fedoras — lately picked up by pop idols such as Justin Timberlake and worn at an ironic angle — are staples, too.

"Men wore jewelry and dress socks and nobody thought twice about it," says the show's costume designer, Katherine Jane Bryant, who won an Emmy in 2005 for her work on "Deadwood."

"Suits were always tailored. It was a great time for men's fashion."