Times Pays Annual Homage to Beard Trend
Oct. 27 2008, Published 7:07 a.m. ET
HONEST TO GOODNESS TREND Abe
How rapidly do trends bubble up in today's turbo-charged youth culture? So
fast that even New York Times style guru Guy Trebay is having trouble keeping up. In a front page story in
today's Thursday Styles section, Trebay cites the way "hipsters have suddenly started looking like Paul Bunyan" as evidence that "fashion is cracking apart before one's eyes" at warp speed. "In the late summer of last year, one spotted a scant few beards around town," claims Trebay. However, he adds, "by this past holiday season ... the bearded hipster-mullah-hippie look had proliferated to the point where one could barely distinguish musicians from the local Hasidim."
"Suddenly," Guy? In July '06, there was the piece by RadarOnline.com's own Mac Montandon in the Times, titled, "The Beard: Hip, but Hot." Last March, in another Thursday Styles piece, Trebay's colleague Eric Wilson noted, "Trends in scruff have reached new levels of unruliness, a backlash, some beard enthusiasts say, against the heightened grooming expectations that were unleashed with the rise of metrosexuality." That piece was titled, "Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol."