Andrew Chisholm, a 30-year-old creative at Juniper Park in Toronto, will often pair his custom shirts with casual details like knitted ties, cardigans and argyle socks peeking over a pair of desert boots (a birthday gift from his girlfriend).
Forget the dapper suits, lunchtime Scotch and secretarial skirt-chasing.
While sixties advertising execs - at least as re-imagined in the hit TV series Mad Men - were some of the sharpest dressers around, you won't find today's image manipulators in Don Draper's suit army. Individuality is the modern ad man's mantra, as clothing is increasingly seen as an extension of creativity.
The change reflects a breakdown in corporate culture, according to Carlos Garavito, chief creative officer at Ogilvy One in Toronto. The ad men of the 1960s took their sartorial cues from the people they did business with. "Then in the eighties, nineties and today, they've debunked the stigma of having to dress exactly like their clients," he says. "Things have become a lot more relaxed. It's become about the individual substance, not the uniform."
But in a visually driven industry, image is still key. "I try to be as polished as possible, but not over the top. I wear a lot of black," adds Garavito, 38, whose workday wardrobe consists of a jacket, a button-up and designer denim.
In other words, you're your own best advertisement when it comes to selling ideas.
"You have to be a master of the visual," says 23-year-old Theo Gibson, an art director at Proximity Canada in Toronto who switches between Nike Dunks with hoodies and oxford shirts with Sperry topsiders for the office.
"If you can play with colour and style in the way you dress," Gibson adds, "it translates into other things."
For Andrew Chisholm, 30, big ideas come with small tweaks and attention to detail, like pairing up his collection of bespoke shirts with argyle socks, knitted ties or his grandfather's salvaged briefcase from the 1930s.
"You want to find something that feels good, but you don't want to overthink it," says Chisholm, a creative at Juniper Park in Toronto. "In work, the things you're instinctively drawn to are usually the right ones."
Hunter Somerville, a Toronto-bred creative at DDB London, agrees that selling your work means dressing the part. But he's also quick to kill the myth of the super-artistic weirdo with wild hair - think Dudley Moore in Crazy People .
"Part of the job is to pay attention to that stuff, to things like fashion and design trends," says Somerville, 29.
It makes sense that, in the business of persuasion, it's important to look like you've got you're finger on the pulse. "I think clients are more at ease when they know you're in line with what's happening culturally," Garavito says.
That said, Mad Men 's style influence hasn't gone unnoticed. Even Chisholm admits to longing for Don Draper's sharp flannel uniform now and then.
"Sure, men looked the same," he says. "But they looked good."