From: richard@Apple.COM (a flying squirrel)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Ah, Fashion.
Date: 30 Sep 92 05:48:32 GMT
Organization: Xiola Blue


(Herald Tribune, 17-September.  Used without permission.)

What's in Fashion?  For Men, Smooth Look Goes Integral

  Lay the willing victim on a gurney -- naked, of course, except for a
sheet -- and lightly dust his chest with talcum powder.  Take a tongue
depressor and dip it into a vat of hot wax, twirling it until all the
golden strands have wound around the wooden wand.

  Slowly apply the hot wax to his chest, spreading it from nipple to 
nipple as one might frost a cake.  Cut several strips of cotton gauze and
lay them neatly across his treacled flesh.  Press firmly.  Smile
pleasantly.  And then rip the hairs from his chest.

  Repeat.

  It seem painfully clear that vanity's latest conquest is the hairy man.
Having a bared his chest, he has apparently decided that nature's foliage
is not the soul of virility after all, but merely an unsightly hedge. 
And so with mounting resolve he reaches for the razor, the shaving foam,
the depilatory cream -- yes! the wax! -- and takes it all off.
 
 Enter the smooth man.

  He is turning up in increasing numbers in advertisements, on the runway,
in the gym, on billboards and in the beauty salon.

  "He's not your average guy", a salon operator, Gary Walker, conceded.
But neither is he a hairless wonder.

  "Are we waxing more guys?  Definitely", said Mr. Walker, co-owner of 
the Ilo salon in Washington.  "They're in their late 20s to mid-40s, and
they're coming from the gyms and the health clubs."

  They have bodies.

  "We're doing backs, shoulders, cheeks, chests, even" -- great hairy
Ned! -- "buttocks, though our girls aren't keen on going down that far."

  Ah, but extreme gestures are what make the world spin faster.  "If 
you look at the Versace ads", said Juliette Fellemann, the model editor
at GQ magazine, "they're showing these big body guys with no hair.  The
other models see those ads and they want to look like that because it's 
a big status thing.  And it just starts trickling down."

  Of course, said Miss Fellemann, who recently sent a shaved Owen McKibbon
to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for a swimsuit shoot for her men's magazine,
"we would not ask a guy to shave if he had, you know, an average amount
of chest hair, or if it was blond."

  "But if it's dark, thick, and overgrown, well, that's pretty gross."

  Jason Kanner, who runs the male modeling division at Boss in New York,
thinks the smoother man emerged after Calvin Klein hired Marcus Schenkenberg
for the designer's well-defined underwear advertisements.

  Mr. Schenkenberg, a brawny model, who often appears on Klein's runway
with the equally beguiling Pontus and Antonius, happens to be naturally
hairless, Mr Kanner said.

  His clients, he says, now want shaved or waxed men for their body-wear
ads because they present "a cleaner silhouette".

  And yet while the designers admire "clean" bodies, they don't seem to
mind a little stubble on the models' faces.  "It's wild", Mr. Kanner said.

  If what we see in fashion magazines and advertisements is any indication
of what we'll see on the streets or on the beaches next summer -- and it
usually is -- there is actually a more compelling reason to think that men
will prefer to be less hirsute.

  Competitive body builders, swimmers and cyclists have been shaving for
years, partly in the belief that it improves their performance, but mostly
because it enhances their appearance.

  "I personally shave my legs and armpits because it shows better body
definition", says Mitch McIntyre, a body builder and instructor at the
Olympus Fym in Falls Church, Virginia.  "I see guys doing it in all the 
gyms.  It's normal."

  He shaves almost every day, and his wife, who prefers him baby-bottom
smooth, notices it when he has not.  "I'll get into bed and she'll say,
'Honey, you forgot to shave!'".

  He wouldn't dream of waxing, though.  "Hell, no", he said.  "I hear
it's painful".

  Quite.

  A male groomer at Oribe, at Elizabeth Arden in New York, said: "I was
talking to a couple of models just the other day who said they had tried
waxing their chest hair, just out of curiosity, but once was enough for
them.

  "The thing about waxing is, you have to let the hair grow out half an
inch before you can wax again, said the groomer, who goes by the name of
Losi.  "You have to have something to grab onto".

  Even among guys who like to keep their chest hair intact, many will
still have their shoulder and heck hair waxed off it if sprouts above
their shirt collars.  "That's just unsightly", Losi said.

  As tastes change, as pectorals become more pronounced and as the line
between masculinity and femininity continues to blur, it seems possible
that men will look at their body hair with increasing disdain.

  Already they are incorporating symbols of physical accomplishment --
biker shorts and muscle shirts -- into their daily lives, and if that
continues, the hairy man may wonder if the ultimate proof of his virility
is not a standing appointment at the waxing salon.

-- 
a flying squirrel is: richard@apple.com  Apple Computer Inc.

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