In the hirsute of happiness

Hair. If you haven't noticed, it's nigh on everywhere, none more so prevalent perhaps than with the youff (youth) of today; more specifically, the young male tweens and teens aged between 13 and 19 years old. In carving out what can often be a particularly difficult few years, it appears that hair has taken over as the great protective mantle, forming a flat-to-the-forehead style that suggests a desire to hide from the world (call it a youthful form of 'Witness Protection Chic'), and yet, rather perversely, this very look is currently sporting the domes of the majority of the world's most famous male entertainers - young icons whose every cut, care and conundrum is pored over and analysed by the most up-to-the-millisecond generation we've ever known.

Case in point, a 16-year-old Canadian crooner you may have heard of: Justin 'Fever' Bieber. His do is nothing short of a global crowning glory - the veritable hair apparent du jour. With nairy an immaculate strand out of place, his cut would appear to be an almost obsessive mastery of the 'trim'; a human bonsai who is painstakingly scissored to perfection every week, carefully concealing the ears to drown out the incessant, high-octane, high-pitched squeals of fervent pubescent fans. He is, as I write, possibly the most high profile of young men to take to the mic on the international stage, and, like every l'il step he takes, his hair never puts a proverbial foot wrong.

Is there a name for this particular hairstyle? If there is, I'm not aware of it, quite possibly because I am, ahem, a woman of much older years, and back in my day, The Bowl, The Village Idiot and The Caesar, with its lobotomy-inspired fringe, were de rigueur. But I digress and inevitably must suggest:

If Michael Jackson was The King Of Pop, could Justin Bieber be The King Of The Crop?

Call it the ultimate 'brush with fame'. In an age where the most shocking gets the most airplay, perhaps the most shocking of all is that the male youff, with an enduring case of Bieber Fever, are turning away from a predilection for unwashed locks and embracing what mother always told 'em: Girls like boys with clean hair. And it must give them a sense of confidence too, unknowingly putting them in good stead for when the manscaping years come into play.

But you know what pleases me most? It's that these angsty, where-do-I-fit-in male teens have formed a global solidarity with loving their locks and hopefully, in turn, loving themselves.

At last it would appear that today's young men, with their penchant for 'The Bieber', are no longer backward in combing forward. And that's the kindest cut of all.

Wise-cracking fashion? The cheek of it all.

There's an undying trend that seems to have too many of the world's males in its evil clench, one that shows no signs of letting go. Let us now speak of the all-too-revealing sartorial horror: The all-too-low-slung jeans.

I blame it on Calvin Klein, circa 1993. I blame it on Mark ('Marky Mark') Wahlberg, the campaign's model-of-choice, and his rippled torso, jeans suggestively lurking low around the crotch, the multi-billion dollar wink of his crisp Calvin Klein Y-fronts, ahem, fronting up.

It was an incredible advertising tour de force, one that left countless men and women hot under the collar, if not the trouser. However, in its lingering wake, it has left millions of today's teenage and adult men under the illusion that it is entirely acceptable to wander the earth in what they consider to be a state of buttock-bearing brilliance. Did they not get the memo? Let us consider its provenance: Underwear. In this filtered-down version of CK mastery, the saggy, off-white jocks atop a half-hearted jean has become a prominent embarassment on the street. How low can fashion go? Belts sigh, "I tried"; jeans shrug, "Why do I bother"?; the wearer boasts, "I'm kickin' ass!" Er, not quite.

And yet, let's be honest, this abhorrence isn't the sole domain of the male. Lest we forget that women have fallen prey to the lure of low jean and its partner-in-crime, the g-string. Whilst seated or bending over, the proverbial lower cups runneth over and, by proxy, so does the underwear. There should be some sort of 'how-to' to accompany the wearing of this popular garment. We have washing instructions, why not how to wear the under so it doesn't awkwardly become the outer?

Of course there was, for a very brief time, a celebrated retour de force of the derriere in the upper echelons of the fashion world. Do you remember the brouhaha that the brilliant Alexander McQueen caused with his 'bumster' jeans? Cut so low, underwear was verboten and the buttocks became the fleshy focus; a veritable 'bottoms up' that only the very brave, the very perky, and, perhaps, the very stupid cottoned on to. But in lowering the cut, McQueen raised headlines, and the brand forged a singular swathe into the world's media and, in turn, formed a part of his masterful legacy.

So where does this leave us? Do we pull up the pants and leave the rear behind, as it were? I'd like to think so. The amount of below-the-belt revealing has left me reeling, and I'm certainly no prude. For in this case, it's most certainly not what lies beneath that counts.

If things don't change soon, I, for one, will be seriously bummed out.

Shoulders: The edge of reason?

Fashion's a whimsical beast. Every season, designers reclaim and celebrate a body part that 'defines' the essence of what it means to be a woman. The navel (Tone it! Show it!); the spine (Lean! Leaner!); the ankle (Wrap it! Strap it!), and so on. Elbows? Currently being revisited. Wrists? Yet to make a comeback. Buttocks? Alaia, je t'aime. And yet for several years, it would appear that the humble (albeit, anatomically necessary) shoulder has remained de rigueur - the first and last bastion of statement style.

From whence did this come, one may ask? All signs point to the hallowed house of Balmain, or rather, its brilliant rock 'n roll estheticien, Christophe Decarnin. Sure, the shoulder has done its tour of puffed-up duty in the past (Dynasty, anyone?), and yet it took a Frenchman to revisit this '80's relic, rescue it from the dress-up box, sharpen the scissors and get to work on some serious reinvention for the 21st century. Teamed with distressed t-shirts (at an equally distressing price), lean trousers and even leaner supermodels, and lo and behold, the shoulder shook up the fashion world once again.

Problem? None, whatsover. My issue (as I'm sure it is with many) is that this elegant reinterpretation has filtered its way down the echelons of fashion to the global footpath, losing its tailored edge and shows no signs of waning to become, well, pedestrian. Firstly, let it be known right now that I wholeheartedly embrace the availability of trends to the masses - I, for one, could certainly never afford the super-luxe prices. For me, the issue lies in the all-too-numerous sightings of mantis-like fashionistas tottering their way along streets with shadow-casting shoulders, many often poorly tailored so that the overall effect is one of dulled impetus; the little shoulder that 'thinks it can' but which, sadly, very often can't.

There aren't too many looks that I'm sorry to see in the public domain (except, for humane reasons, the crack-loving g-string over the jean, the 'invisible' elastic bra straps beneath an evening dress, etc) and I have to admit being super-fond of the great Aussie 'trackie dack' (re-cut for '10) on a chilly day, but how I wish this obsession with the shoulder would give one almighty shrug and disappear into the back of the closet, perhaps only to be drawn out of sartorial retirement to take on the White Queen of Narnia in a battle of well-worn weaponry.

Now THAT would be something to see. Forget The Lion: This is The Witch and Her Wardrobe vs. an army of seriously shouldered jackets. My money's on the Balmain.