Go(atee) to Hell

When I think of the antithesis of Fatshion, I think of a large man wearing faux zebra fur Doc Martins, a pair of JNCOs, a rockabilly style button down with guitars printed all over it, long side sideburns and a bushy goatee. We've started to cover many Fatshion basics, but we've said very little about personal grooming. Before too long, many people start asking, "What about those sideburns and that goatee?" Willis is talkin' 'bout facial hair.

Here's the bomb. Facial hair should be avoided at almost all costs. That's right. I said it. Even with thin guys, facial hair only looks good about ten percent of the time. This is reduced to about one percent of the time that facial hair actually looks good on overweight men. There are a few reasons why. First, facial hair intended to mask double chins, fat cheeks, or recessed chins rarely performs as the wearer thinks, and often actually draws attention to the troubled area. When facial hair is allowed to grow long and ratty, it looks disgustingly unkept, and when it is kept short and groomed, it doesn't provide the masking effect that it was grown for in the first place. Second, facial hair is simply not fashionable. Sideburns, goatees, soul patches, mustaches, chin straps, full beards: you name it, it's just not in style. Third, with a lack of a jaw line, fat people are forced to end full beards at an arbitrary point along their double chins. When thin people have chiseled jaw and neck lines, there are natural places for facial hair to stop. With fat people, these lines are considerably blurred, and choosing a place to end your facial hair can be disastrous. Lastly, a stubbly day after look works for models and good looking people, but the same look makes overweight people look sloth-like.

The biggest key to facial hair is to look around yourself. Look at the facial hair of the people you run into. All those people who have hideous facial hair think that their facial hair looks great, just like you think yours does.

This post brings up one of the fundamental dilemmas of Fatshion: in the midst of trying to look your best and trying to maximize perceptions, where do personal taste and personal style enter the picture? The ultimate answer is that many issues of personal taste ( i.e. I love the feel of silk shirts or I love these sideburns) are in diametric opposition to the principles of Fatshion. This doesn't mean that you must give up all personal style choices; rather, it means that your personal style, over time, should become far more congruent with the principles of Fatshion.

Your facial hair isn't fooling anyone about your chin(s), it's not fashionable, it ends awkwardly, and women don't like it. Don't consider yourself the one exception who actually does look better with facial hair. Don't wait until tomorrow... Shave today.