One of those ostensibly trivial but socially seismic sea changes is currently taking place in Japan. Hair has been such a symbol of virility that the solid salaryman has been tempted to reach for a wig when middle-aged hair loss sets in. He even favoured the comb-over to learning to live with his pate — a style known locally as “the barcode”, because of its juxtaposition of jet-black (often dyed) strand and bright white scalp.
But the belief that it was preferable to fall upon one’s hairpiece rather than one’s sword is finally giving way. New orders from the leading wig creators Aderans are down 30 per cent. With the pension system in crisis, retiring workers are tightening their belts and dispensing with costly hair habits. While the resplendent natural mane of Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister, remains a subject of national awe, enthusiasm for the faux mop is slipping like a badly fitting toupee. Undoubtedly this is for the best. Masculine obsessions with hair rarely bode well. Samson’s tresses were a fashion crime long before they were a crime of passion. Absalom sported locks so long they got caught up in a tree, causing his untimely end. Byron, Mick Jagger and Michael Heseltine have done little to assuage the impression that big hair means even bigger egos.
Better by far to adopt the shaven-headed approach of the fashionably bald. No longer slap-headed unfortunates, these men have taken their corporeal destinies in hand, laughing in the face of nature with a razor and a No 1. The result is a sleek, stream-lined magnificence reinforcing old adages about baldness and testosterone. As Japanese men have discovered, less really does mean more.