On Style: Chest Hair...

There is a simple rule you must follow with chest hair – all or nothing. If you have a mighty, Spartan-esque rug, wear it with pride. If you sport a few wispy strands of bum-fluff, get rid. Wax or shave (in my youth I preferred the latter, though am in the rug camp these days). If you are a rug-man, wear white shirts open a couple of buttons, and try adding a Captain Haddock style beard to the mix. This season the Great British Male look is still strong, so you can really rock the imperialist forefather look this winter, and keep yourself comfortably warm in the process.

Don’t forget that having a bald chest doesn’t make you any less of a man – remember, you can shave by choice; you can’t make your hair grow. And that, my dapper disciples, is an important lesson.

Looking good on the outside shows certain things about your personality. Sure, you might come across vain and conceited, but few successful men and women were anything but. More importantly though, it shows that you care about yourself; you care about what other people think – losers who can’t get the life they want and insist on blaming the world, rather than their own haplessness, for their state of dissatisfaction, often eschew the tenets society in search of an excuse as to why they are at the bottom of the pond and sinking. ‘Being different’ doesn’t mean you have to dress like a teenager into your thirties. It can be done with elegance and restraint; creativity and design; boldness and innovation. To look your best you need confidence in your decisions. But it is the exercise of this confidence that really sets your look alight. If you are confident enough to wear that electric blue and orange paisley print pocket square your dad wore to his prom in the ‘70s, go for it, but make sure you really go for it. Wear it in a puff – show it off, brag to the whole room about it. And all without opening your mouth…

Oscar Wilde once, quite rightly in my opinion, said; “It is the shallowest of people who don’t judge by appearances.”

Naysayers will say that what’s inside counts more. And they would be right.

But nobody goes looking for diamonds in a pile of shit.


Pick up THE HARE newspaper at Night and Day, Bar Centro, Font or Tiger Lounge in Manchester town centre, or the Oakwood in Glossop.

E-mail theharenewspaper@hotmail.co.uk with questions, comments or contributory pieces.