Perils of the Fad

This post gives me the pleasure of re-introducing my artist friend, Julian Peters, whose website is now full of his magical skills. Honestly, who knew that poetry and comic books could make such stylish bedfellows. I hasten you there, where you may happily lose an hour or two.

We’re all subject to fads; even the best of us. Although the more elegant of our number will point to a certain permanence of style, we nevertheless watch as cuts go in and out, longer and shorter, and as tie widths narrow and widen from one year to the next. Take time-lapse photography of the face of an adult male over ten years and you will see his sideburns dance up and down, with seasonal facial hair sprouting and disappearing whimsically. The mutton chop, however, is now dead (and wherever you see it, you can be sure it’s a fad). At least we can say that the mode du jour in these terms is only variations on a theme. Taking a broad view, things appear basically to stay the same.

Reproduced with permission. Julianpeterscomics.com

Click to enlarge.

Not so in the inelegant world. There’s a meaningless revolution every five minutes out there on the street, as vanity dolls everywhere do their best to be miniature poodle of the year. It really is as tasteless as Crufts. Someone should hand out rosettes for best in show. Particularly annoying this year is the craze among women to wear not-quite-thick-enough black tights sans skirt. This year I’ve seen more underwear, cellulite, bum sweat, and unmentionable bulges than any given single man with broadband. And all I’ve been doing is making my way on the pavement, trying in vain to mind my own business. Really, ‘ladies’, when did you decide that this was above board? If it’s merely a fad to presage the second-coming of the long dress and empire waist I might just about live with it. I fear however, that the next step will be even more revealing, and a further notch on the self-degrading scale.

The male fad that’s made me sigh most this year – and maybe it’s just a Berlin thing – is wearing glasses without lenses. That’s right, just frames. It helps if the frames are luminous pink, or green, but I’ve also seen rather swish tortoise-shell affairs astride the hipster nose. I don’t get it. Is being somewhat optically deficient in? Were my sight to diminish I should embrace the wearing of glasses wholeheartedly. Until it does, and I pray it won’t, I shall continue with nez au naturel.

Reproduced with permission. Julianpeterscomics.com

Click to enlarge

At times like this I wish I were an oak tree. As the years pass, I would barely notice these fools, and the world might seem like a consistent procession of the stylish.

Hold On A Mo; or, Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

It is November and therefore the month of the moustache. This recent convention is in aid of prostate cancer research and awareness, and on that score it is unimpeachable. But what of the moustache itself? Clearly identified as a masculine symbol by the orchestrators of this movement, the moustache is nevertheless of uncertain historical status. At the very least, Jeeves was highly circumspect about matters of the upper lip, and that should give us pause. Of course, the ladies of the Wodehouse world thought otherwise, but they were universally awful and had poor taste. Further pause. By no means do I suggest that P.G. tips offer the best insights into the manly life, but then again, they aren’t far off.

Barbarian lipwear, c. 300 BC.

 

The first reported depiction of a moustache was on the face of a Scythian warrior. The civilised world at that point in time would doubtlessly have considered him a barbarian. This is an inauspicious beginning. Still, the Greeks coined the thing, calling it mystax, and her philosophers were no strangers to the cultivation of facial hair. Our modern associations with the hairy lip don’t help settle the thing, with everyone from Ned Flanders to Stalin to confuse us.

Flanders

Stalin

The most sensible words on the subject can be extracted from Household Words, via the pen of Dickens, in 1853. We must be on our guard, for Dickens was not averse to quackery and nonsense, and we can quickly disregard his arguments about the bodily expulsion of carbon and the body being thrown into chemical imbalance by daily chin scrapings. More persuasive are his allusions to the symbolic importance of the thing:

The idea that there existed a connection between a man’s vigor of mind and body, and the vigor of growth in his beard, was confirmed by the fact that Socrates, the wisest of the Greek philosophers, earned pre-eminently the title of the bearded. Among races of men capable of growing rich crops on the chin, the beard has always been regarded more or less as a type of power… The beard became naturally honored, inasmuch as it is a characteristic feature of the chief of the two sexes (I speak as an ancient), of man, and of man only, in the best years of his life, when he is capable of putting forth his independent energies. As years multiply and judgment ripens the beard grows, and with it grows, or ought to grow, every man’s title to respect.

Still, this deals in zones rather lower than that upon which we currently gaze, and Dickens hastens to draw our attention to the mistaken mystax of the nineteenth-century aristocrat. The association of whisker and rank was stamped into the popular imagination, so that after the revolutions of 1848 the Germans did away with their hairy adornments so as not to be confused for members of the old order. The Hungarians, however, continued to place great esteem in the thing, and famous Generals sported moustaches that might have been caught under foot. Despite this nonsense, Dickens averred that it was better for Englishmen to lay down their razors, for it would save them a year over a lifetime. And this, ultimately, speaks against the moustache, for it saves no shaving time, and indeed probably makes for fiddly shaving and, if you will, mo’ maintenance. It should be beard or nothing, and even then it should be tended and trimmed, just as the philosophers insisted.

I don’t aspire to any of these labels.

All this having been said, and with my former assertions about the joys of shaving in mind, I am attempting to grow a moustache, if only to demonstrate to myself that the judgements of history are not wrong. I doubt it will last, for Mrs. VB is not a fan, and there are certain acts that should not be compromised, as this fellow in 1855 discovered:

A caution during the approaching festive season to young gentlemen who wear sharp-pointed moustaches: Pretty cousin: ‘What a tiresome great awkward boy you are! Just see how you have scratched my chin!’ (Punch)

The Buzz On Barbers

As a boy, I had my barnet barbered by Mr. Frank Shakespeare. He was among the last of a dying breed of local men’s hairdressers, with a large clientele of men who had never patronised any other cutter. He was desperately old fashioned, and as a child I hated going there. He knew two cuts: short back and sides, slicked back with a side part, and the crew cut. The place reeked of oils and treatments, old men and old leather. He knew all the talk, but then, he knew everyone inside out. No appointment necessary – everyone waited his turn – Mr. Shakespeare did a good trade. On a Saturday, you might have waited for two hours. I reminisce with a faint nostalgia. I don’t think he was a good barber, but he was certainly better than the all those who followed, with the buzzed bonces they created. Shakespeare lacked drama, but he had character.

Most men couldn’t care less about their hair. Many of those who do so spend hours making themselves look like a sticky greasy mess, except for at the back, which gets no attention at all. Well-groomed men top their image with an incongruous ‘messy look’, and elegance everywhere is confused with ruggedness. The occasional individual pulls off a look, but for each of these there are ten who labour under the misapprehension that mullets, pony tails, and clipper-art still look good, if in fact they ever did. My hair is the least likeable thing about me (I think). It is limp, straight, unruly, and seems deliberately to confound all attempts to make it neat. It does these things despite the treatment I furnish upon it, and despite its bespoke tailoring by the best barber I’ve ever had.

It’s not his fault, it’s mine. My itinerant nature means that I am in his neighbourhood far less often than my hair requires, but I am fiercely loyal. For the last four years I have had my hair cut only by Anthony, who now has his own salon – Metropolar – in the Montreal plateau. This despite the fact that for three of those four years I have lived in Berlin and in Boston. Yes, that’s a long way to go for a trim, but when you find your man, it’s hard to go back to the run of the mill.

What makes this the place and him the man? It’s like Shakespeare had a re-vamp. Vintage cutting chairs and an environment that screams character are mixed with cutting-edge style, techno-savvy presentation, and sharp skill with the scissors. It’s also genuine. There’s no faddish, up-to-the-minute, but wafer-thin, veneer. What you see is substantial, and it breeds confidence. It’s backed up by profoundly engaging conversation. Anthony is the barber philosopher extraordinaire. Best of all, it’s never rushed. I could cut my own meagre mop in fifteen minutes, but Anthony takes his time. An hour or more is not uncommon, and the time should not be underrated. A barber has a social responsibility – he doesn’t just cut your hair, he takes you out of yourself. A haircut is a holiday from your daily grind; a moment of luxury for, and indulgence in, yourself. Only a great barber can facilitate that. I only wish I could get there more often.