10 February 2010

Food for thought

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Layering up for a winter by the sea

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Plaited hair and plaited summer dress

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Flowers and bicycles in Amsterdam, travelling in style.

9 February 2010

Banging beards and mighty moustaches


I am a great fan of facial hair…on men. Be it a little rough stubble adorning a strong jaw line, a full-blown rusty beard or a handle bar moustache taking pride of place on a face.

 Facial hair + man = smiles all round

Long gone are the days when beards were equated with yetis, gorillas or even Tom Hanks in Castaway, today all forms or facial hair are heralded as being fashion forward. With men experimenting more and more with their styling and beauty regimes it comes as no surprise that focus has also been extended to the facial hair. How men manage to tame, trim and tousle bewilders me, but style them they do. You need only wander along any tube and on show is a plethora of facial hair types, my personal favourites are the Dali-esque moustache and some super chunky 90s rock sideburns. Both very different, but both emanating an originality that is just a step further than vintage shopping.

Cave men first sported the looks way back when cave woman could rival them in the facial hair category, today, thanks to the lovely lads of GQ, Vice and Dazed magazines facial hair for guys is once again ‘cool’.  It seems as though there is a style to suit every modern man, with the help of charity movements such as Movember and trendsetters of the world, other young men are taking more risks than ever with their facial hair. Thank-you Brad Pitt’s micro dreadlock beard, Jake Gyllenhaal’s rough bristles and Models 1’s white whiskered David Gant.

Some critique facial hair as it signals a certain kind of personality – unkempt, messy and chaotic, but isn’t it this wildness what attracts us to them? Is there not something very animalistic within all of us that longs for the graze of a beard against out soft cheeks?