A Hair-Raising Issue
As Tom Ford leaves his posts as creative director of Gucci and YSL this summer, fashion editors are left to ponder what his greatest legacy will be. Will it be the glamorous rich-bitch-on-the-threshold-of-anorexia look that dominated his decade at the helm of what is now one of the most influential fashion brands?
Will it be his use of rare and expensive materials? Or will it be his re-establishment of the interlocking G monogram as a symbol of status, luxury and beauty as opposed to the naffness and 'bet that's a fake' comments it achieved in the 1980s?
For men everywhere, even those who have not heard of the sartorial master of sex, money and power, the answer is simple: Tom made hairy chests not just acceptable, but fashionable, desirable and even sexy.
Or rather, he made massive efforts attempting to do so. Even when he did send some models down the runway Abercrombie-style with perfectly smooth torsos, Tom would appear at the end of each show with a liberally unbuttoned shirt, exposing his own matt of thick, perfectly conditioned black chest hair. This personal crusade culminated in his advert for M7 aftershave, which featured a specimen of a man who was most definitely an extra during the filming of Planet of the Apes.
And where Tom goes, others follow. Dolce and Gabbanna, never ones to miss an opportunity to expose some flesh on either men or women, began producing excessively low-cut V-neck t-shirts that on your average man would display more than just a tuft of hair. While the trend has continued in the world of expensive labels, the high street has caught up in time for summer, with H&M and Topman producing similar t-shirts.
But what are we to make of this penchant for chest hair? Last summer, in an effort to carry off the D&G t-shirts, I found myself having my chest waxed. It was an excessively vain thing to do, and the pain left me breathless, but I made a value judgement that this was better than exposing my chest hair, which was not glossy and soft like Tom's, but more like a Brillo pad that had been chewed by a pack of dogs. You see, chest hair just isn't attractive. I know women say they prefer it to the plucked-chicken look, but they are thinking of the type of chest hair that Jude Law displays in The Talented Mr Ripley: consistent, fluffy, just the right amount, and complemented by a deeply sun-kissed body. Real life men, ones not selected by Models1 to grace the catwalks, have patchy, wiry, dry and greying chest-hair that contrasts with a just off-white body.
So what is your modern metrosexual male who was not blessed with a luxury deep pile carpet of chest hair to do about this? I no longer consider waxing an option as all the women I know worry about a man who grooms to that level (they fear the expectations they may be expected to live up to!), and the pain certainly deters most men from doing it more than once.
An anti-fashion stance and covering up, Arab-style is the only option left: no low cut tops, but round necks and shirts with t-shirts underneath (the preppy just out of Princeton look is also all over the shops this season).
Designers will soon realise that this chest-bearing trend does not sell well, and does not flatter even their most Adonis-like customers. Men everywhere are hoping the legacy of Tom Ford may well be limited to skinny velvet trouser suits and monogrammed handbags.
20th May 2004