Posted on 01/23/2005 7:00:10 AM PST by flitton
Literary sorts say that every man has a novel inside him. That’s not true — it’s a letter of complaint. But every man does have an inner beard. And, just as every woman has considered letting out her inner part-time lesbian, so every man has considered letting out his inner beard. Sadly, the right girls say no and the wrong men say yes. Here’s the stubbly truth about beards: this is the only thing you need to know, the alpha and omega of eek topiary. If you look like Jabba the Hut without a beard, you’ll look like Jabba the Hut with a beard. The majority of bearded men grow them as butch and cheap plastic surgery. They say: “That Sean Connery looks brilliant with one. I’ll have a couple of inches of that.” And it’s true that Connery is the only person who doesn’t look like Freddie Mercury or Saddam Hussein in a droopy moustache. Where hair is concerned, however, Connery is the aberration, not the role model.
For beards, the toupee rule applies: better to be naked bald than bald with a rug. Growing a beard on a receding chin is like growing carnations on a grave — it just draws attention. Beards are not camouflage; they are not the manly equivalent of a leylandii hedge. They are William Morris wallpaper; they are a statement.
If you think you’re fit to let out your inner beard, then let me warn you that you will spend the first five minutes of every morning thinking: “Is today the day I dump the bitch?” Beards are like annoying, clinging girlfriends you once fancied. No man with a beard actually commits to the point of throwing away his razor, because we all know that under every beard, there is a jaw yearning to get its kit off.
It's time to stop fluffing around with novelty facial hair. This year, a clean shave is all the rage, says Simon Mills
Personally, I blame AJ from the Backstreet Boys. And Donnie from New Kids on the Block. And the little fat one from ’N Sync, and Howard Donald from Take That. Not to mention pretty much all of Another Level and 5ive. Ever since the boyband boom of the early 1990s, when it became almost compulsory for every troupe of malleable goons to feature a “hip-hop one” in the line-up, pointlessly creative facial hair has been enjoying a renaissance among the young. Sideburns, Zapata moustaches, skate-punk goatees and beards that even religious fundamentalists would regard as unacceptable are everywhere. And the question we ask is: why?
Because, to our eyes, creative facial hair is not rebellious or shocking. It is not scary, subversive or aggressive. And it is not fashionable — indeed, most fashion pundits have declared 2005 the year of the clean-cut look. It is just comical.
Take the bizarre fashion for that Rotring-pen line of hair that runs from the sideburns down the jaw line and up, going over the lip in a slender demarcation that tells the wearer where the face stops and the neck starts. What is that about? You may have noticed David Beckham wearing this style recently. Such inane vanity is a total waste of time.
More ugly facial hair comes in the form of a thin vertical line of tonsorial bush dividing the chin area under the bottom lip into two equal parts. On Arsenal’s Robert Pires, it looks piratical. On the soon-to-be-axed Ferreiras from EastEnders, it is silly. And what is it, anyway? A helpful guide in case you forget where your mouth is?
What about that fashion — mainly among surfer/skateboarder types — for leaving a disturbing growth of hair just below the bottom lip? They think this looks cool. I think it makes them look like they are nurturing a large mole. And was I the only person to be obsessed with the carefully maintained goatee beard of Vanilla Ice on Five’s The Farm? He looked like he had just dunked his chin in a jar of Baby Bio.
“These fashions for facial hair usually start in the ghettos of LA, travel over to New York and are picked up on the council estates of London, where they are mimicked pretty competently,” says Gustav Temple, editor of The Chap magazine and former wearer of a pencil moustache. “What is odd is that they actually require a distinctly feminine level of attention and grooming, when the end result is designed to make men look aggressive and threatening, like members of the criminal classes.”
Indeed, there are few fans of the fuzzies out there. The female gender doesn’t like the fashion for phizog tonsure. A survey of more than 2,000 men and women, conducted by Lynx, unearthed some conclusive statistics: 63% of men believed that facial hair made them more manly, while 70% of women dismissed moustaches as out of date, 66% condemned goatees as sloppy and a whopping 86% said that they found beards unattractive. Even more damning is the fact that 47% of all male IT experts have fuzzy lips or fluffy chins.
Now, before you accuse me and the British public of being beardist, let me defend myself. I like beards. Some of my best friends have beards. I have even grown one myself. I have also encountered several magnificent celebrity beards, including Liam Gallagher, George Clooney, Badly Drawn Boy, Kings of Leon and, a couple of years ago, Jude Law. What is important is that all of the aforementioned men had the dignity and propriety to grow a proper beard: lush, fecund whiskers that scrape the shirt collar and make the girls giggle when it kisses them. Law’s was particularly handsome, and throughout my interview with him, he stroked it pensively. (“I do like a sharp suit,” he mused. “But, to be honest, a sharp suit doesn’t look good with a big beard. I’ve tried it, and I look like a geography teacher.”)
Such a lush beard is not just facial hair, it is follicular gravitas, providing early-Noughties man with an intellectual quality in the same way that non-prescription specs provided vacuous female pop stars such as Mel B with character in the 1990s.
Yet facial-hair fashion is always on the move. A year or so ago, the catwalks were alive with porn-star moustaches, fanny-tickler beards and ludicrous facial topiary, but the menswear spring/summer 2005 collections featured the super-clean-cut, with Alexander McQueen sending out West Point officer cadets with chiselled haircuts and even more chiselled jaws. “Like spoilers on cars, everything elaborate is wrong at the moment,” comments the fashion stylist Tom Stubbs. “Now, it’s about a return to control.”
David Piper, party organiser and founder of the underground cabaret shindig The Modern Times Club, likens the dangerous excitement of attending to his caddish and minimal pencil moustache during a hangover to “charlestoning down the Matterhorn”.
If only Abs from 5ive could have explained himself so eloquently.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1440414,00.html
I like to keep my "stash" trimmed neatly. If I don't the wife calls me a walrus and I feel like I should be out in the ocean straining plankton from the water.
I happen to like the look of a well kept mustache on a man. Some men can wear beards and some can't.
My son has one of those sprout beards right under his lower lip that the article refers to as the surfer beard. While I'd prefer he shave it off, it's so small I don't notice it anymore. He doesn't have a mustache and has never grown one. It would be interesting to see what he looked like with one now that I think of it.
Where is a picture of Michael Moore?
I never allow little, effeminate, British weenies to dictate anything to Me.
They should stick to advising those who care, like Mikey Jackson!
I convinced my husband to shave off his mustache and it took years off of his appearance. When people told him that he looked like he was 27 or 28 when he was 35, he decided not to grow it back. It's weird, because I don't really like beards or mustaches, but I do like it when he hasn't shaved for a couple of days and has some whiskers.
I quite like the look of a well tended goatee, but only if the man in question can grow a proper beard not if it's a straggly collection of hairs masquerading as a beard
30+ years for mine, and yes, I do look like a geography teacher. Something wrong with that?.
Only if you were wanting to be a Hollywood actor, then the geography teacher look probably won't land many parts. :-)
You think this is a little overboard?
Nyet.
I and most of the women I know do not care for facial hair. I REALLY hate those fuzzy patches right below the lower lip--and the fuzzy mini-beards that some young kids grow just on the bottom of their chins. Yuck. Strangely enough, though, I do like that 3-days' growth look.
Shaggy from Scooby Doo a fashion icon. Who'd have thought it.
I'm 59 and have had mine since getting out of the service at age 22.
Occasionally I'll run across relatives or old friends I haven't seen in 15 or 20 years and they will say. "I didn't recognize you with a beard".
I just smile and don't bother to tell them I have had it for 37 years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.