Beards are big. And getting bigger. Not only are more and more men rejecting the razor in favour of facial hair, but the whiskers are getting bushier and bolder.
A new photography exhibition has just opened at London’s Somerset House featuring some of the world’s most impressive beards. Photographer Brock Elbank has travelled the globe taking pictures of the most unusual and flamboyant facial hair to feature in his project. One of the show’s subjects, Australian Jimmy Niggles, decided to grow his substantial beard following the death of a friend from skin cancer. He set up a charity ‘This is Beard’ to raise awareness of melanoma and educate on how to check for signs of the disease, using beard ambassadors to spread the world. And it’s not just men featured in this exhibition –23-year-old Harmaan Kaur from Slough is the only woman to be featured.
This isn’t the first time beards have been the height of fashion. Looking back through history there have been other peak periods in their popularity. During the reign of Elizabeth 1 the fashion was very much for facial hair, with some historians believing it was a reaction to having a strong female in authority, with men growing beards as a sign of their potent masculinity in reaction.
But anyone about to join the trend should beware – a recent Australian study found that beard wearers became less attractive as more people grew their facial hair. Could it be a case of hair today, gone tomorrow? Only time will tell.