Name: Lockdown hair.
Age: One and a bit.
Appearance: Shaggy.
You seem to have failed to realise that hairdressers are open in England, Wales and Scotland. I’ve managed to get an appointment next week. We chaps can go back to military-style buzzcuts. Hey, get with it, man.
I’m sorry? You evidently didn’t get the memo. Lockdown hair is here to stay. Ask Tomasz Schafernaker.
Who? Tomasz Schafernaker. The BBC’s “rebel” weather forecaster.
Surely a “rebel weather forecaster” is a contradiction in terms. Not at all. He’s young, wacky, arty and, most important of all, he’s refusing to cut his hair! He’s decided the wild look is good, whatever viewers think.
How absurd. Sack him. We want well-groomed weather people. You’re not the emeritus weatherman Bill Giles, are you? He takes the same view, arguing that audiences won’t trust a weatherman whose fringe is obscuring his eyes.
Well said. What is the world coming to? One viewer described Schafernaker’s unkempt look as “a cross between a member of Abba and a 1970s porn star”. But he’s vowed to keep it. “It’ll need a little styling, but that’s it,” he says. “My choice.”
Disgraceful. Whatever next? Huw Edwards with a man bun? Andrew Marr with a caveman beard? Maybe. Anything goes post-lockdown, according to style experts. GQ’s resident grooming columnist, Phillip Picardi, has said lockdown has seen men “liberated from expectations” and that long hair, moustaches and beards are a growing trend.
I don’t think so. Even Boris Johnson has had a haircut. Allegedly. His hair managed to look almost as messy after it as before.
Once people get back to the office, the unkempt look won’t seem so clever. Everything will go back to normal, including hair. That’s possible, of course, but many in the business think we are on the cusp of fundamental change. These things come in waves. Nothing is permanent, least of all a perm. This is about personal growth and the human condition(er).
OK, enough hair allusions. Get to the point. Short hair has dominated men’s hairdressing for decades, but the wheel is finally turning – celebrity crimpers sense a reaction against the short back and sides US Marines look, and 70s adult entertainer could be the way to go. “It’s time for a change,” said Joe Mills, the founder of the London barber’s Joe & Co, when speaking to Esquire.
You seem to be extrapolating wildly from one weatherman’s decision not to have a haircut. There’s definitely revolution in the hair. Others are at it.
Like who? The high-rollers at Forbes were on to it early, seeing the move to long hair as a throwback to the counterculture of the 60s and 70s – and as a rejection of the cropped haircuts and aggressive baldness favoured by the Trump administration. Hair has become deeply political.
I suppose I should cancel my appointment at the barber’s. Or just ask for a Schafernaker.
Not to be confused with: A wensleydale longwool sheep.
Do say: “Hair today, definitely not gone tomorrow.”
Don’t say: “My usual No 1, please.”