Jesus Christ Pose

I had a weird experience on Thursday when I looked at the NY Times style section. It was a slightly wavy reflection of what I've been thinking recently. The featured article was on the return of the "interview suit" (I'd written my own little blurb about women's suits on Monday). Also, there was a feature on the new popularity of Jose Ignacio, Uruguay (where I went a few years ago), a review of a photography exhibit (where my friend took the photo of me in my red shoes - the subject of my first blogpost), and finally, a story on the return of grunge in men's fashion featuring a bearded model. (For those of you who haven't seen it, my Bloomberg greenbar reads "waiting for the return of grunge (and $40/bbl oil)."

I'll leave off the oil discussion since I'm just talking style on this blog (though if you want to talk about my oil forecast, IM me. Yeah, I thought so...) Acknowledging that my story telling can be a bit wordy, of all that stuff in the first paragraph, this post is really about beards.

Not living in Amish country, I hadn't seen a young guy with a beard until I went to Freeman's a few years ago. The host had one and it fit well with the decor, which was a bit of a Rorschach test. To me the faded plaster walls, old portraits, and taxidermy were all very German hunting cottage, but I've also read others describe it as American and Irish. Whichever, it's been a very influential style in the NY restaurant scene and seems to be spreading much further.

But it seems the beards have been influential too. They were enough of a trend for the NY Times to write about the issues of beards during the summer in July '06. (Crux of the article: they're hot. temperature hot.) And the partners behind Freemans launched a men's clothing store to capitalize on that look as well. (Top photo)

But what really made me think this trend had legs strong enough to jump to the mainstream was this ad for Ann Taylor. Hello beards, good bye razors! If anything is more mainstream than Ann Taylor, I'd like to know!

Flannel shirts have already re-appeared on the streets of NYC, I'm looking forward to hearing the next Sound Garden, Nirvana, or Pearl Jam, and I'm even sort of cool with Doc Martins and plaid depending on how it's done, but please no scrunchies or 90210 redux! (Btw, the fake Chanel-y jacket on the model in the front is also very '90s.)