The 6 reasons beards are everywhere

In the space of a few short years the beard has made a hitting return to British life. Footballers, actors and fashionable hipsters are far more likely to wear some class of facial hair than they were in the recent by. The wearing of a well-barbered, blow-stale and oiled beard is unlikely to raise whatsoever eyebrows. The Long View has been talking to some beard experts and has come up with some beard-strokingingly intriguing facts.

1. The (unhealthy?) focus on diet and bodies

As a nation nosotros are increasingly worried about trunk paradigm. Whilst women's body shape and size has long been under scrutiny in the media, men - especially Millennials - are under force per unit area to hone and sculpt a healthy and stiff shape. This concentration on the physical attributes of men's bodies has brought a new focus on diet (never far from a protein shake) and muscular athleticism (y'all're more likely to run into your male work colleague at the gym rather than the pub nowadays). The beard feeds into this as a natural extension of the body and a way to shape the face, elongating the head and creating a strong jaw line.

2. Women in power

We are currently seeing a similar blueprint emerging to what happened in the Victorian era when beards became all the rage. In the 1850s, women agitated for more power. In that location were national concerns that British men were condign more than weak. These concerns resulted in a focus on the male person body. The bristles became almost the emblem of manliness, upheld as a symbol of natural male person forcefulness. Today, in an era where the campaign for gender equality sees more than women recognised in positions of ability than ever before, men are growing stiff beards and stroking them for added mensurate.

three. The recession

The beard revival is very much to do with the thought of a nostalgic version of masculinity. The recession has led to this very nostalgic, backward-looking attitude to way. It's almost as if things seem to exist going and so wrong on a earth-scale at the moment that we are afraid collectively to look into the future. Nosotros're not sure what the future is going to bring us, and then nosotros take dandy comfort in looking at the by because it's already gone. Vintage has been incredibly popular as a fashion trend. Men are looking backwards to the beard because for them information technology represents a manliness, it looks back to a time when men were men. The beard is something tangible – information technology'due south something men have to literally hold on to in times of stress.

With less time spent shaving, this fella at present spends more time on photography.

Why shave? David Timpson reads an essay written by Charles Dickens.

iv. The influence of war and celebrities

War is a big influencer on beards. In the Victorian era it was the soldiers returning from the Crimean Entrada who sported magnificent beards. Part of the idea for that campaign was that yous put the soldiers sporting heavy beards and moustaches at the front of the marching cavalcade to frighten the enemy! When men render from a tour abroad sporting a beard, information technology has always influenced people.

Nosotros aren't quite at the level of the Victorian's dearest for beards, which included a new range of moustache cups to cease your moustache and bristles dipping into your soup form by accident.

Celebrity endorsements ever brand a big difference in fashion. In Victorian times information technology was the explorer David Livingstone endorsing beards, just nowadays footballers, musicians, moving-picture show stars – they've all got them. Only wait at the Armory football game squad. Today's squad photo shows 10 bearded players out of 26. Compare that to the team photos from the 1970s or 1980s and in that location are no beards to be institute – clean-shaven all the style. Mighty beards on the likes of histrion Tom Hardy or MMA fighter Conor McGregor have helped to bring the beard to the masses.

5. Jobs are less physical

We alive in the era of automation. The workplace has changed dramatically, the idea that masculine jobs are suited with physicality has disappeared. Men somehow feel that they need to survive, be stiff and capable, and use their bodies. Considering many men aren't using their bodies in everyday work sitting in meetings or in offices, they're demonstrating their capability and strength through fashion. When you look around in the U.K. you'll see many men wearing huge boots, jeans, shooting jackets, plaid shirts – they wait as if they should be in a mountain cabin in Oregon about to go out and shoot a moose, simply instead they're but nipping out to Londis. The beard is very much part of this – it's a symbolic way of showing that you lot can survive whatever crunch, including the overwhelming lack of copse to chop.

half-dozen. Authenticity

There is an underlying idea that it'due south more authentic to have a bristles. The return to the hairy man after the advisedly coiffured pilus and fake tan trends was an inevitable change in fashion. There is a fascinating ambivalence towards pilus in culture. Some people fear it when it grows in armpits, some find it disgusting, yet some men can grow an ballsy amount of it on their faces and that can be acceptable. Nosotros fear information technology - even though it's a sign of sexual maturity, people laser their torso hair off and so it will never grow again. At the same fourth dimension some people take huge abundances of false hair on their heads. The beard is somehow symptomatic of that – it'due south ok now, but possibly in 20 years time volition people await at information technology with a certain corporeality of distaste? The cycle of way may somewhen button beards out of popularity once again. Fashion has been extremely gendered upward until now – women have had long hair, short skirts and high heels, whilst men accept had big beards, working wearing apparel and boots. Logically there'due south going to be a motility in mode towards coming together in the middle and gender fluidity.

Twice in the past where nosotros've had long beard trends - the Tudor menstruation and then once more in the Victorian period. But rather than disappearing completely, the trend then inverse to moustaches. So are we presently going to see the return of the moustache or perhaps some elaborately shaped whiskers? Watch this face- ...erm, infinite.

This chap is ready for any eventuality in his work boots, denim, plaid shirt and beard.

Jonathan Freedland heads down to the beard barbers to talk over why every beard isn't treated in the same way.

Beards are at present commonplace in the role.

  • Jonathan asks what drove the passion for beards at points in history and what fuels it now.

    The Long View

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