The Obligatory
"Play safe. Ski only in clockwise direction. Let's all have fun together."
Thursday, March 23, 2006
The New York Times Says Beards Are "In"
Rachel sent me this article from that most venerable of news sources, the New York Times.
It's a pretty funny read. You know, for the Times. It's got some pretty good quotes in here, too. There's one guy who says his beard is like "a security blanket on (his) face," and the image of a beard-off between the offices of Spin and Vice magazines is great, too.
But if those fucking hipsters start growing beards as some sort of bullshit, ironic trucker-hat statement, there's gonna be a throw down.
Beards of this kind, however, are completely cool with me.
NY TIMES
March 23, 2006
Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol
By ERIC WILSON
LAST December John Martin sat in on a focus group for a
trend-forecasting company at which young professionals were asked
about their grooming habits. Mr. Martin found he had nothing useful to
contribute. His shaving regimen involves the use of a razor about as
frequently as the seasons change.
"Everyone else was chiming in about the products they use," said Mr.
Martin, the advertising director for Vice, a lad magazine based in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "I was totally mystified. I blanked."
Mr. Martin's idea of a style symbol, seriously, is Ulysses S. Grant,
whose beard he came to admire after watching the 2003 Civil War-era
drama "Cold Mountain." Two years ago, when he began experimenting with
different beard styles, which he described as ranging from neat to
burly to unkempt, his facial hair was an expression of individuality
in a tide of metrosexual conformity. Now 10 of his 15 co-workers at
Vice wear full, bushy beards. In that, they vie with the
pro-facial-hair contingent of an editorial rival, Spin, where a rash
of new beards has broken out.
"It's a sign of the times," Mr. Martin said. "People are into beards right now."
At hipster hangouts and within fashion circles, the bearded revolution
that began with raffishly trimmed whiskers a year or more ago has
evolved into full-fledged Benjamin Harrisons. At New York Fashion Week
last month at least a half-dozen designers turned up with furry faces.
"This is some sort of reaction to men who look scrubbed, shaved,
plucked and waxed," said the designer Bryan Bradley, who stepped onto
the runway after his Tuleh presentation looking like a renegade from
the John Bartlett show, at which more than half the models wore
beards: untidy ones that scaled a spectrum from wiry to ratty to
shabby to fully bushy.
"It's less 'little boy,' " Mr. Bradley said. "For a while men have
looked too much like Boy Scouts going off to day camp."
On city streets, too, trends in scruff have reached new levels of
unruliness, a backlash, some beard enthusiasts say, against the
heightened grooming expectations that were unleashed with the rise of
metrosexuality as a cultural trend. Men both straight and gay, it
appears, want to feel rough and manly.
Other designers who appeared in scruffy beards during Fashion Week
included Brian Kirkby of Boudicca, Nathan Jenden and Matthew
Williamson. Santino Rice gave the look national exposure on "Project
Runway" this season, with weekly variations. Among the models that
Ralph Lauren cast in his men's show was a wildly bearded young man
with long tresses, like Brad Pitt circa 2002.
And with their fully furry chins Ariel Foxman and Bruce Pask, the
editor in chief and the style director, respectively, of Cargo
magazine, the metrosexual manifesto, seem now to be endorsing a
lumberjack ideal.
"It's a nice masculine aesthetic," said Robert Tagliapietra, who with
his similarly bearded partner, Jeffrey Costello, designs a collection
of pretty silk jersey dresses under the Costello Tagliapietra label.
"We both like that aesthetic of New England cabins with antlers on the
wall, plaid shirts and a beard."
Beyond the fashion world, any number of celebrities are exhibiting
luxuriant facial hair, including George Clooney with a Hussein-like
beard in "Syriana"; Heath Ledger in GQ, looking like Snoopy's sad
cousin, Spike (the beagle with a skinny mustache who is always
depressed); and Mel Gibson on a good day. At the New York premiere of
"V for Vendetta" last week, Hugo Weaving appeared (with his co-star
Natalie Portman, an adopter of last summer's iteration of the Mohawk)
in the beard of the moment, grown for the stage production of "Hedda
Gabler."John Allan, the owner of several clublike grooming salons in
New York, reports seeing newly bearded customers, but not enough to
warrant concerns for the health of his shaving business.
"It will be interesting to see over the next six to eight months what
mainland America is going to do with it," Mr. Allan said. "For the
past several years we've been stripping guys of their body hair. Maybe
now it's time for the pendulum to swing the other way."
Whenever a countercultural trend becomes a mainstream one, there is a
natural tendency to look for deeper meaning. Do beards that call to
mind Charles Manson suggest dissatisfaction with "the system"? Are
broody beards, like the dark and somber mood of the fall fashion
collections, physical manifestations of a melancholia in the air? Are
they a reflection of the stylistic impact on mainstream fashion of the
subculture of gay men known as bears, who embrace natural body hair?
But such theories seem to have less relevance — and beards less shock
value — than they once did.
"Style has separated itself from viewpoint," said Tim Harrington, the
lead singer of the rock band Les Savy Fav, who is known for his full
beard and balding head. "This is not like when beards were worn by
hippies. Now you pick a style for aesthetic reasons as opposed to a
viewpoint. I wonder if beards can have the oomph they once had when it
feels like someone will ask you: 'Where did you get that beard? Is
that beard from Dolce & Gabbana?' "
No survey ever conducted about women's attitudes toward beards, even
those not underwritten by the Gillette Company, has indicated that
more than 2 or 3 percent of women would describe a full beard as sexy.
("I hang out with those girls who are in that 2 or 3 percent," Mr.
Martin, of Vice, said.)
Yet the return of the wild beard carries a certain erotic charge that
has been missing from beards since the Furry Freak look of the 1970's,
or at least those who grow them hope they do.
Andrew Deutsch, a designer of interactive Web videos, swears that
having a beard has changed his life, giving him an air of confidence.
"I met my current girlfriend a week after I started growing my beard
in November," Mr. Deutsch said. Now he finds himself constantly
touching and stroking the beard, as if it were a talisman. "It's like
a security blanket on my face," he said.
That a full beard can suddenly look right — or, more accurately, not
so awful — illustrates how quickly ideals of masculinity can change.
"You know, it's funny," said Lola Phonpadith, a public relations
manager for the fashion company BCBG. "I've been talking about this
with my friends for weeks. I'm kind of into guys with beards today,
and I'm embarrassed to say that. But the pretty-boy look can only last
for so long."
It's a pretty funny read. You know, for the Times. It's got some pretty good quotes in here, too. There's one guy who says his beard is like "a security blanket on (his) face," and the image of a beard-off between the offices of Spin and Vice magazines is great, too.
But if those fucking hipsters start growing beards as some sort of bullshit, ironic trucker-hat statement, there's gonna be a throw down.
Beards of this kind, however, are completely cool with me.
NY TIMES
March 23, 2006
Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol
By ERIC WILSON
LAST December John Martin sat in on a focus group for a
trend-forecasting company at which young professionals were asked
about their grooming habits. Mr. Martin found he had nothing useful to
contribute. His shaving regimen involves the use of a razor about as
frequently as the seasons change.
"Everyone else was chiming in about the products they use," said Mr.
Martin, the advertising director for Vice, a lad magazine based in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "I was totally mystified. I blanked."
Mr. Martin's idea of a style symbol, seriously, is Ulysses S. Grant,
whose beard he came to admire after watching the 2003 Civil War-era
drama "Cold Mountain." Two years ago, when he began experimenting with
different beard styles, which he described as ranging from neat to
burly to unkempt, his facial hair was an expression of individuality
in a tide of metrosexual conformity. Now 10 of his 15 co-workers at
Vice wear full, bushy beards. In that, they vie with the
pro-facial-hair contingent of an editorial rival, Spin, where a rash
of new beards has broken out.
"It's a sign of the times," Mr. Martin said. "People are into beards right now."
At hipster hangouts and within fashion circles, the bearded revolution
that began with raffishly trimmed whiskers a year or more ago has
evolved into full-fledged Benjamin Harrisons. At New York Fashion Week
last month at least a half-dozen designers turned up with furry faces.
"This is some sort of reaction to men who look scrubbed, shaved,
plucked and waxed," said the designer Bryan Bradley, who stepped onto
the runway after his Tuleh presentation looking like a renegade from
the John Bartlett show, at which more than half the models wore
beards: untidy ones that scaled a spectrum from wiry to ratty to
shabby to fully bushy.
"It's less 'little boy,' " Mr. Bradley said. "For a while men have
looked too much like Boy Scouts going off to day camp."
On city streets, too, trends in scruff have reached new levels of
unruliness, a backlash, some beard enthusiasts say, against the
heightened grooming expectations that were unleashed with the rise of
metrosexuality as a cultural trend. Men both straight and gay, it
appears, want to feel rough and manly.
Other designers who appeared in scruffy beards during Fashion Week
included Brian Kirkby of Boudicca, Nathan Jenden and Matthew
Williamson. Santino Rice gave the look national exposure on "Project
Runway" this season, with weekly variations. Among the models that
Ralph Lauren cast in his men's show was a wildly bearded young man
with long tresses, like Brad Pitt circa 2002.
And with their fully furry chins Ariel Foxman and Bruce Pask, the
editor in chief and the style director, respectively, of Cargo
magazine, the metrosexual manifesto, seem now to be endorsing a
lumberjack ideal.
"It's a nice masculine aesthetic," said Robert Tagliapietra, who with
his similarly bearded partner, Jeffrey Costello, designs a collection
of pretty silk jersey dresses under the Costello Tagliapietra label.
"We both like that aesthetic of New England cabins with antlers on the
wall, plaid shirts and a beard."
Beyond the fashion world, any number of celebrities are exhibiting
luxuriant facial hair, including George Clooney with a Hussein-like
beard in "Syriana"; Heath Ledger in GQ, looking like Snoopy's sad
cousin, Spike (the beagle with a skinny mustache who is always
depressed); and Mel Gibson on a good day. At the New York premiere of
"V for Vendetta" last week, Hugo Weaving appeared (with his co-star
Natalie Portman, an adopter of last summer's iteration of the Mohawk)
in the beard of the moment, grown for the stage production of "Hedda
Gabler."John Allan, the owner of several clublike grooming salons in
New York, reports seeing newly bearded customers, but not enough to
warrant concerns for the health of his shaving business.
"It will be interesting to see over the next six to eight months what
mainland America is going to do with it," Mr. Allan said. "For the
past several years we've been stripping guys of their body hair. Maybe
now it's time for the pendulum to swing the other way."
Whenever a countercultural trend becomes a mainstream one, there is a
natural tendency to look for deeper meaning. Do beards that call to
mind Charles Manson suggest dissatisfaction with "the system"? Are
broody beards, like the dark and somber mood of the fall fashion
collections, physical manifestations of a melancholia in the air? Are
they a reflection of the stylistic impact on mainstream fashion of the
subculture of gay men known as bears, who embrace natural body hair?
But such theories seem to have less relevance — and beards less shock
value — than they once did.
"Style has separated itself from viewpoint," said Tim Harrington, the
lead singer of the rock band Les Savy Fav, who is known for his full
beard and balding head. "This is not like when beards were worn by
hippies. Now you pick a style for aesthetic reasons as opposed to a
viewpoint. I wonder if beards can have the oomph they once had when it
feels like someone will ask you: 'Where did you get that beard? Is
that beard from Dolce & Gabbana?' "
No survey ever conducted about women's attitudes toward beards, even
those not underwritten by the Gillette Company, has indicated that
more than 2 or 3 percent of women would describe a full beard as sexy.
("I hang out with those girls who are in that 2 or 3 percent," Mr.
Martin, of Vice, said.)
Yet the return of the wild beard carries a certain erotic charge that
has been missing from beards since the Furry Freak look of the 1970's,
or at least those who grow them hope they do.
Andrew Deutsch, a designer of interactive Web videos, swears that
having a beard has changed his life, giving him an air of confidence.
"I met my current girlfriend a week after I started growing my beard
in November," Mr. Deutsch said. Now he finds himself constantly
touching and stroking the beard, as if it were a talisman. "It's like
a security blanket on my face," he said.
That a full beard can suddenly look right — or, more accurately, not
so awful — illustrates how quickly ideals of masculinity can change.
"You know, it's funny," said Lola Phonpadith, a public relations
manager for the fashion company BCBG. "I've been talking about this
with my friends for weeks. I'm kind of into guys with beards today,
and I'm embarrassed to say that. But the pretty-boy look can only last
for so long."
that one guy you know, 9:07 PM
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|
| | | | | | | | |
4 Comments:
Speaking of beards, I was idly flipping through channels a few minutes ago and thought I saw you on a station that wasn't g4. It was just a brief glimpse, and then I realized that I was seeing things.
Don't tease Casey with lucid dreams of oppurtunity...
-ryan
-ryan
I'm sorry...
Though I do wish it had been him; the movie might have actually been good.
Though I do wish it had been him; the movie might have actually been good.
I believe i complimented your beard, and sadly some of us are unable to grow them, even in our late 20's.
