Casting was finally over for

the reboot of Magnum PI

THE BEARD
IS REBORN
Not since the days of Charles Darwin and WG Grace have whiskers been so
popular. A bare-of-face Andrew Dickens investigates the facial-hair phenomenon

3 8 / W W W. S H O R T L I S T. C O M
 FACIAL HAIR IS BACK

“MY BEARD ANGST IS THAT

n my friend Ian’s face sits a wheat field of
O evil: the dark, virile strands of his beard. Like
elite Roman legionnaires intimidating an army
of one-legged Gallic shepherds, they taunt
their inferior counterparts across the carriage of the
London to Exeter train. My hairs could never hope to
muster such a beard, and I hate it.
Since well before puberty, it’s been my ambition
to grow a beard. A proper beard, that is. Not a David
Brent-esque goatee or something that looks like I’ve
missed a bit shaving, but a Galifianakis, a Blessed. I’d
even settle for a Gyllenhaal. But nature has denied me.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m no Bumfluff Bertie. I can
carry off the dishevelled look — I just can’t go full tramp.
My follicles always seem just a fraction too far apart.
Ian, however, in a couple of weeks, has grown something
that would get him strip-searched at JFK. Why? Because
he could.
It’s all the more galling because, until a few years ago,
a beard like Ian’s would’ve marked him as a fringe member
of Western society, such as a hippy, communist or gnome.
So unacceptable was it in the last century that prior to the
2006 finals, only one fully-bearded man, Argentina’s
Sergio Batista in 1978, had won the Fifa World Cup. Fact.
I CAN’T GROW ONE. I’M IN MY
MID-30S, I’VE DONE STUFF.
I’VE EARNED A BEARD”
“Our faces are the biggest indicator of our feelings, so
by covering your face, you’re not showing your feelings,”
he explains. “When our ‘fight or flight’ instinct kicks in, one
of the immediate reactions is a quivering upper lip. A beard
hides your fear.”
On the wall of the ShortList office is a six-foot image of
our David Cameron cover from last year. There’s also one
featuring Lord Alan Sugar. One, a man who needs to be
seen as open, is clean-shaven. The other, a man who
needs a poker face, to show no fear, has a beard. That
said, I may be reading too much into this. Close up, the
detail in the photos is incredible, and I’m not convinced
that Cameron has a choice — I don’t think that he could
even grow a soul patch.
“The beard is much more acceptable now,” says
conspicuously, each of The Beatles around the time that
it was all going a bit wrong (for The Beatles, not the
Captain). This, according to Peterkin, is no coincidence.
He claims that men typically grow a beard during a period
of transition, and there’s plenty of that about these days.
Recession or otherwise, there’s no such thing as a job for
life any more, unless you’re the Queen, and few people are
without a failed relationship or 10 to look back on.
“Look at Al Gore,” he says. “After he lost the
presidential election, he grew a beard. Historically men
grow beards when they’re grieving. In Jewish culture, you
don’t shave when you’re sitting Shiva. There’s the break-up
beard, the play-off beard. When a guy starts to become
more jowly, they’ll grow a beard to look younger, and that’s
another kind of transition.”
It seems, then, that in the beard’s rollercoaster history
of social acceptance, we are definitely in a ‘furry’ period.
So what does this mean for us, the disenfranchised
possessors of insufficient pilosity? Are we destined for
a life of envy and inadequacy? Will we forever wait for
the physiognomy-swapping technology of films such as
Face/Off ? Or hope that the same miracle cure that has
allowed Shane Warne to reinvigorate his scalp will be
adapted for use on chins?

Now, though, the beard is back with greater force than
at any time since Disraeli and Darwin ruled the world with
theirs. From a full-on Joaquin Phoenix to a carefully
trimmed David Gandy to the scruffy ‘stubble plus’ that
I and half the men around you are probably sporting,
face fuzz is almost ubiquitous.
“It’s as bushy a time as we’ve had since the Victorians,”
says Dr Allan Peterkin, author of One Thousand Beards: A
Cultural History Of Facial Hair. “Since then we’ve had two
Peterkin. “The two exceptions, though, are banking and
politics. In those worlds, you don’t want to risk someone
misreading your face. With a beard, you could be Satan or
Santa. But in other professions, you can get away with it
in the way that our fathers and grandfathers couldn’t. It’s
a way of showing that you’re no corporate slave.”
CHANGING FACES
This mildly anti-establishment sentiment makes facial
PHOTOGR APHS: R AM SHERGILL , GET T Y IM AGES, PA , RE X FEATURES ST YLING: ADRIAN CL ARK HAIR: AD AM REED, CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT PERCY & REED USING L’OREAL PROFESSIONAL TECHNI-ART
“There’s always going to be people that have them,”
says Zambarakji. “Like your uncle who’s had one for years
and it’s as much a part of his face as his eyes and
forehead. But things are cyclical. It’s my belief that it’s
a style statement and it’s fleeting and it will go away.
“It’ll take six months to a year for the knock-on effect
to reach the average Joe, but we’ve already seen on the
summer catwalk that we’re going to start sporting a more
assertive and confident look. A more groomed look that

M ODEL: TE X AS OLSSON @ ELIT E LONDON MAKE- UP: JOHN C HRISTOPHER @ NAKED ARTIST S USING KI EHL’ S GL ASSES BY TRU TRUSSARDI, JACKET BY G U C C I .C O M
world wars, which introduced a militarism into society, hair eternally popular with artistic types. A quick Google says, ‘I was up at five, I’ve been to the gym and bought six
plus disposable razor blades became available. In North search for famous beards churns up a huge, hairy array companies on my way to work.’”
America, being clean-shaven was next to godliness.” of actors and musicians, including Captain Birds Eye and, Assertive. Confident. Groomed. Take that, hippies.

APEING THE APES

The bearded weren’t always such pariahs. Quite the
opposite. At various times in history, beards have been
considered holy or used as status symbols. The Catholic “ I ’ D R E C O N S I D E R T H E M U T T O N C H O P, S I R … ”
church taxed beards, as did beardy King Henry VIII, Mustafa Ismail of Ted’s Grooming Room (Tedsgroomingroom.com) helps you find the right beard for your face
ensuring that only the rich could afford to grow them,
while no member of the 19th-century elite would be seen
without something sprouting beneath their nose.
On the other hand, beards have also been seen
as unclean or the symbols of slaves and questionable
foreign types. Villains such as the Sheriff of Nottingham
and the Devil are often portrayed with facial hair. But
whatever the thinking of the time, beards have always
been significant — and not just among those sporting them.
“Women are drawn to a large, square jaw,” says
Peterkin. “It’s associated with testosterone, part of
classic male beauty. In male apes, for example, we
see a lot of jaw jutting. A beard makes the jaw look more ROUND FACE LONG FACE SQUARE FACE SMALL FACE OVAL FACE
powerful. Women who are shown pictures of the same “The shorter you “With long faces, “The best thing is “In the same way “What looks
men with and without a beard nearly always find them keep the facial we usually clean to have a short, that we shave good here is to
more virile and masculine with the beard, though more hair, the better. shave the beard almost pointed the beard sculpt a thicker,
often than not they say that they wouldn’t want to go Designer stubble from the chin beard that just shorter on larger longer version
out with them.” works really well and jaw down, covers the chin, faces, we like to of the pencil-line
There it is: the M-word. A beard is a purely masculine on a round face. so that the whole with the hair leave it a little beard. If your
thing — very few women can grow one. My beard angst Clean shave neck is bare. blended shorter longer on smaller face is really
is not simply that I want to grow a beard: it’s that I can’t. from around the This makes the towards the or thinner faces. oval, it can look
At least, not a really manly one that tells people I’ve lived. Adam’s apple face appear cheeks. This This technique slightly gaunt
I’m in my mid-30s, I’ve done stuff, I’ve earned a beard. down — if you shorter. Many gives the face helps to fill and empty
“Beards on men in their 20s just look wrong,” agrees don’t, stray hairs guys tend to go a nicer, more the face out around the
grooming expert Ahmed Zambarakji (Theexfoliator.com). at the bottom of for a moustache oval shape and slightly and, jawline, so leave
“They suit a mature gent. They signal authority. I think the your neck will with this look, tones down in doing so, a denser strip
current popularity may have something to with the decline start blending too — it seems the squareness. produces a of hair covering
in metrosexuality. Men are reclaiming their masculinity. into your to finish it Keep the much more that for a
A beard is still quite rebellious and there’s an element of, chest hairs.” off nicely.” moustache trim.” rounded look.” fuller effect.”
‘Don’t mess with me, I’m the alpha male.’”

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