Catwalk trends, which spend a lot of time busying themselves with collars, new fashion prints and stonking great workman boots, also extend their interests northwards towards the hair. Of course, they didn’t all follow the same lead.
If you are looking for a time to release your inner monastic bowl cut, then let Alexander McQueen’s show act as your open door. If you can’t see yourself with a fringe that stops just below your hairline, however, you can feel reassured that nearly every other designer found joy in some degree or other of the rockabilly quiff. Whether Jedward moved from the X Factor stage to high fashion muse in less than two months, or whether Milan types are blissfully ignorant of their existence, is unclear. What is certain is that men are going to need to grow their hair on the crown to at least 5cm and they’re also going to need to learn how to get nifty with a wide-toothed comb if they want to get this look right.
For those who are willing to push the boundaries of both skill and impact, please refer to the Bottega Veneta show (below left). For a fashion house with such understatement and composure, this was truly radical. Big, pointy and full of Teddy Boy brilliance, the look requires a set of rollers and a lot of courage. As an amusing aside, you may enjoy knowing that this rolled together look is referred to in professional circles as the ducktail, for obvious reasons.
If you don’t fancy using pond life as follicle inspiration, let me take you to Jil Sander, where the Fifties theme still led the way but, as with everything sold under the Sander name, was done with cool, minimal panache. As the influential hairstylist Daniel Hersheson sees it, this is all about working the front and the sides and nothing, surprisingly, to do with a hairdryer. As long as you get a strong enough gel (Hersheson recommends Tecni.Art by L’Oreal Ahead Glue, £10.50 hqhair.com), this needs no heat intervention — the hair, once towel dried, he says, can hold with the product alone. Once you have run a good glob of gel through, be liberal enough to leave a gloss finish, pull the front of your hair vertical with the comb and then twisted forward and placed down and to one side. With the quiff in place, you need to now move your attention to the sides. In traditional rockabilly circles these were combed back past the ears. Now, though, the sides need to be brushed forward to rev things up a bit.
Staying within the confines of the postwar era, Hersheson adds that men who don’t have the desire or ability to grow the length, should look to good Ol’ Blue Eyes for inspiration instead. Frank Sinatra perfected that clean, sharp side-part that Hersheson thinks is another strong contender in the men’s hair trend war. Known by hairdressers as the American barber cut, it has the added bonus of being able to be left messy if you suddenly find yourself without the gel, which of course, would be impossible for those with the extra Jedward-style length.
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Either way, there is an agreement, on the catwalks and among those who style men’s hair, that we have broken free from unruly, Javier Bardem locks, and are going back to the days of old-fashioned gel and combing.