Sometimes my beard says, homeless hottie or I just ate a glazed doughnut. AB
Beards: Rugged? Trendy? Or Unreliable?
FOUR years ago, I grew the first full beard of my adult life on a whim. I was 41, and it was neither a fashion statement nor a midlife crisis, but it came at a fortuitous time: the style world just happened to be entering the Postmillennial He-Man Beard Epoch.
It was the dawn of an era, when dewy actors like Ryan Gosling and Jake Gyllenhaal started showing up on red carpets sporting cheek-fringe that seemed to boast, “My cover-boy looks can shine even through this tangle”; when it became obligatory to show up at Brooklyn warehouse parties with the shaggy jowls of an 1890s beaver trapper; when the Unabomber chin mane became unexpectedly chic on fashion runways.
Accidental Bear 