Movember 2019

November is Movember, the campaign that raises awareness and collects donations for men's health issues by celebrating the mustache.

This year, Hair is for Pulling's contribution is this engaging Iranian painting of Hunter on Horseback Attacked by a Lion from the Zand period (1750–1779). While derived from manuscript painting, this larger painting on canvas would have hung in a residence or hunting pavilion. "Such works were viewed as visual complements for poetry that the hosts, their guests, or storytellers would recite to entertain one another at convivial gatherings in intimate settings."
Via the Brooklyn Museum 

Chuy, The Wolf Man - A Documentary

Tomorrow, Monday, November 30th at 8pm, the Morbid Anatomy Museum is screening the documentary Chuy, The Wolf Man, a story about the life of Jesus 'Chuy' Aceves and his family, all of whom suffer from congenital hypertrichosis, or excessive face and body hair.

"No-one's really sure what causes hypertrichosis, or how to cure it. What they do know is that there are about 50 documented cases in human history and it was my fate to be one of them," says Aceves. "We are the hairiest family of our species."

The earliest recorded case of hypertrichosis is Petrus Gonsalvus who was born in 1537 in Tenerife. He was exhibited at royal courts in Europe with his children who also had hypertrichosis.

Jesus and his family suffer discrimination in all areas of their lives: the children are made fun of at school and abandoned by their 'non-hairy' parents, and the adults cannot find work unless they choose to exhibit themselves as freaks in circuses. This documentary examines the family's day-to-day lives and their struggle to find love, acceptance and employment.

You can read more about the struggles of Jesus and his extended family in this recent BBC article.

 
Here's a trailer of this moving documentary:

Movember Moustaches

There is something distinctly whimsical about Movember, the month of the moustache. Started in 2003, Movember is a charitable campaign that highlights, and raises money for, men’s health issues by asking men to grown moustaches for the month. Here are a few ways that folks are bringing a smile to my day:

1. Lost in E Minor's "Airplanes with Moustaches" post

 2. Victoria and Albert Museum's moustache broach to bring out your inner modern day dandy.

3. The Moustache Calendar began in 2004 as a crazy idea dreamt up by two college roommates who needed to raise money for airfare to Hawaii. Matthew Cavallaro, a collaborator on this year's calendar entitled "The Very Best," says, "Throughout history, the moustache has been a symbol of empowerment for men. We wanted to celebrate the legacy of the moustache in design, fashion, and adventure. The calendar walks a thin line between pop art and fine art. We're making some bold statements about how relevant we believe it should be in popular culture, while obviously being a bit tongue-in- cheek."

4. Asos is offering a wide selection of moustache-related items, including a pack of 3 enamel charm rings, a moustache knitted beanie by River Island, and a moustache clutch by Koku.

5. The Moustache Bow Tie Project is a Kick Starter campaign brought to you by Knot Theory, the creator's of last year's successful Kick Starter project The Moustache Tie Clip Project. Knot Theory is a fashion label based out of Vancouver, Canada.

6. The third annual Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships took place on Sunday, November 11, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's hard to imagine a more important event for American enthusiasts of facial hair. Growers were judged in eighteen categories, including the Dali,
Imperial, Hungarian, and the Musketeer.

7. The Manly 'Stache. This is now a couple of years old, but it's hard to resist a blog post marveling over the most manly of mustaches....

Happy Movember!!!

The Hand-Me-Down Beard

DJ and producer Tim "Love" Lee has one of the best, most joyous, beards I know.

I've often encouraged him to enter the World Beard and Moustache Championship. Well, today it turns out his beard is not just a choice; Tim actually has a genetic marker for beard-growing. His great-grand dad, Wilfrid Arthur Bevan, sported a wonderful beard, as this painting from 1870 shows. A remarkable resemblance in the eyes, don't ya think?

 

Tim was recently interviewed while getting a haircut by the Village Voice and noted, 

I really like the idea of 'putting a beard' on something and making it a bit shabby and left of center. But now I'm trying to go for more of the 'Successful Businessman' look until I make my first million, and then I'll go back to the 'Crazed Woodsman.'

 Intriguing how the signifiers for beard styles change over time.

In Defense of the Beard

Back in December, Bergdorf Goodman featured a blog post called Beards: A Fierce Defense by David Coggins (a contributor to Art in America and Artnet). The piece was on the silly side (with scenarios of moms and girlfriends begging their sons to shave) but coincided with the store's window display of beard and mustache watercolors by John Gordon Gauld for the Men’s Store on Fifth Avenue.

The display led to a panel discussion which was moderated by David Coggins, and included the actress Whoopi Goldberg, the jewelry designer Philip Crangi, the investment banker Euan Rellie, the playwright and critic Cintra Wilson, and the writer Sloane Crosley. Discussed were styles of whiskers such as the classic mustache, the bowlstache, the cat whiskers, the blockade, and the dragonstache. According to the American Mustache Institute, however, the only "certified" styles are the Chevron, Dali, English, Fu manchu, Handlebar, Horseshoe, Imperial, Lampshade, Painter’s brush, Pencil, Pyramidal, Toothbrush, and the Walrus. But by whatever name you call it, as Whoopi pointed out, “Certain faces—and certain cheek structures—should not have beards. Or mustaches. They cannot pull it off.”

The Civil War's Gen. Ambrose Burnside had a mustache so epic that it coined the term “side burns.”

At the panel event, the beard styles suggested to be avoided were ones sported by Osama bin Laden, Kenny Loggins, most indie rockers, German hardcore-pornographic actors from the nineteen-seventies, Jesus Christ, and "the weird guy from ‘The Hangover.’” Favorite beards? Well those of Czar Nicholas II and Samuel Delaney. (uh, who?)

The popularity of the series in the store's window led to a small show for John Gordon Gauld at the Chelsea Gallery Salomon Contemporary.

Highlighting Fu Manchus, handlebars, muttonchops, chinstraps, and Santas, the exhibition reinforces a sparked contemporary interest in facial hair, and is intended for aficionados and haters alike. While the beard is timeless, certain patterns recall historical figures, eras, and past trends. Facial hair can show one’s status and level of intellect, or one’s diligence or laziness. It can truthfully reflect a personality; and it can deceive.

There is something both whimsical and disconcerting about these displaced facial features. Devoid of eyes, nose, mouth and ears, these few lines still manage to suggest the wearer's face. Or do we just have such preconceived ideas about these hairstyles that we don't need an individual to fill them out? John Gordon Gauld is, by the way, the grandson of the milliner Lily Daché. Are hats and handlebars so far from one another as accessories, as devices of adornment?

Is the beard is "an essential expression of man’s nature" and suggest "a man who’s comfortable with himself and his achievements" as Coogan purports? Or does facial hair styles fall into the realm of costume because we seem to already know what they mean?

Happy Halloween

Exhibition: A Short History of Facial Hair

David McDiarmid (1952-95) was an artist, DJ, graphic designer, fashion designer and queer political activist. He was born in Australia and lived and worked in Sydney before moving to New York where he worked from 1979 until 1987. He died in Sydney of HIV Aids-related illness in 1995.

C. Moore Hardy - David McDiarmid - 1993

In 1993 McDiarmid wrote and performed an essay, accompanied by 35mm colour slides, entitled A Short History of Facial Hair in which he pulled together his personal fashion, grooming and adornment story and his political and sexual history, representing a twenty-year period of his life and times.

 David McDiarmid - Facial Hair... from Trade Enquiries - 1978

Beautiful, hard hitting and humorous A Short History of Facial Hair is an interrogation of McDiarmid’s appearance as it changes from hippy to clone, to Gay Liberation activist, sexual revolutionary, hustler, dance floor diva, and ultimately, to HIV–positive queer subject - his self styled “Toxic Queen.” He traces how gay politics changed during what he described as “an extraordinary time of redefinition and deconstruction of our identities from camp to gay to queer.” The work explores links between art, identity, politics, dress and adornment.

 Photographer unknown - David McDiarmid - 1981

A Short History of Facial Hair has been digitised and re-created as a film by the Fashion Space Gallery, directed by Hermano Silva. Silva is a Brazilian photographer who lives and works in Berlin. He is a graduate of the MA program in Fashion Photography at London College of Fashion. A Short History of Facial Hair is screened in conjunction with a display of McDiarmid’s Rainbow Aphorisms – a suite of fierce and seductive digital art works created in 1994-5. The exhibition has been jointly curated by Dr. Sally Gray, University of New South Wales, Sydney and Fashion Space Gallery Curator, Magdalene Keaney. On view at the Fashion Space Gallery until October 29, 2011.

Photographer unknown - David McDiarmid - 1986

Beards and Moustaches

Every two years facial hair enthusiasts converge at the World Beard and Moustache Championship. Men compete in a variety of categories that include Dali, imperial, and freestyle for moustaches and natural, Fu Manchu, Musketeer, and Verdi for beards.

Finland’s Juhana Helmenkalastaja - 2011 Winner of Dali moustache - Photo by Banjo Media

Germany's Dieter Besuch - 2011 Winner of the Partial Beard Freestyle - Photo by Gregory Fett

But some of the best pictures of these hirsute gentlemen were taken by Matt Rainwaters at the 2009 competition in Anchorage, Alaska. Scroll and enjoy these images from his series Beardfolio.

 Cory Plump, an Austin Facial Club member and garibaldi contestant.

 Steven Raspa and his beard Prepostero

San Franciscan Jack Passion placed third this year (2011) with his long, red natural beard.