Tony Blair must be starting to empathise with Samson this week. Can you imagine being a short-haired former Prime Minister, who on every rare appearance on the Today Programme and Remembrance Sunday has the Twittersphere baying for blood, demanding the police arrest him and send him to The Hague? Then he appears on ITV looking like David Ginola and everyone is tweeting, ‘gosh, look at his hair!’
Though I confess, he doesn’t look too bad, Delilah is still the patron saint of smart men. Should you be considering letting your Covid long locks play out, and avoiding booking a full grooming session at Truefitt & Hill, Trumpers or Pankhurst of London, then have a rethink. Grooming for men has gone through a vast shift since the end of national service. Often offices – especially in the city – required their staff to maintain respectable hair lengths that ultimately reflected what was acceptable in the officers’ mess. While men have been successful over the years sporting long hair, they have never been smart, and I know which of the two is more important.
Richard Branson is perhaps the most successful long-haired silver fox, but his schtick was to be a rogue businessman, who played by different rules and standards. It worked: he is unbearably rich, but no one has ever gone out looking incredibly stylish or smart and said, ‘this is my Branson look’. Anthony Eden on the other hand…
Another long-locked pioneer is Savile Row flagship H. Huntsman owner, and all-round success story, Pierre Lagrange, whose hair has become something of a trademark, which he pairs with equally exuberant (and beautifully made) suits. Again, Pierre’s confidence allows for the norm-breaking to go unnoticed and feel perfectly fitting, but his credo has been ‘disruption with respect’ ever since he took over Huntsman so that all chimes perfectly.
Jimmy Saville had long hair too, but we don’t like him.
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