- Terrific find on facial hair trends over the 20th century
- The introduction of the safety razor and world wars have had neglible impact on trends
Source Paper: robinson1976a_facialhairtrends
Source: http://flowingdata.com/2014/01/08/facial-hair-trends-over-time/
Facial hair trends over time
In 1976, Dwight E. Robinson, an economist at the University of Washington, studied facial hair of the men who appeared in the Illustrated London News from 1842 to 1972 [pdf].
The remarkable regularity of our wavelike fluctuations suggests a large measure of independence from outside historical events. The innovation of the safety razor and the wars which occurred during the period studied appear to have had negligible effects on the time series. King C. Gillette’s patented safety razor began its meteoric sales rise in 1905. But by that year beardlessness had already been on the rise for more than 30 years, and its rate of expansion seems not to have augmented appreciably afterward.
Someone has to update this to the present. I’m pretty sure we’re headed towards a bearded peak, if we’re not at the top already.
BUT THEN THIS FROM THE ATLANTIC:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-facial-hair/282951/
The Rise and Fall—and Rise—of Facial Hair
In 1940, the anthropologists Jane Richardson and Alfred Kroeber examined pictures of catalogues, magazines, and drawings dating back to the 1600s in an attempt to find trends in the cuts and styles of women’s dresses. What they produced were fascinating graphs of evolving social mores, with periods of plunging necklines quickly succeeded by buttoned-up decades of modesty, and vice-versa. One particularly entertaining chart shows generally Amish-length skirts throughout history — save for a racy, rapid shortening during the libidinous 1920s.
In 1976, University of Washington economist Dwight E. Robinson sought to apply the same technique to fashion trends in the opposite sex—specifically, in men’s “facial barbering.”
For the study, published in the American Journal of Sociology, he examined the period between 1842 and 1972, the years of continuous weekly publication of the Illustrated London News. Since this was the “world’s most venerable pictorial news magazine,” it would serve as his sole source.
With the acknowledgement that the “gentlemen of the News” were largely limited to prominent members of society, he set about counting the frequency with which five different facial hair styles appeared: sideburns alone, sideburns and mustache, a beard (“any amount of whiskers centering on the chin,” in case you were confused), mustache alone, and clean-shaven. He excluded pictures of royalty, models, and non-Europeans, and gathered about 100 images for each year.
Here are the bristly results:
Beards and sideburns began losing their luster in the mid-late 1800s, while mustaches hit their apex in the early 20th century and have been increasingly less popular ever since. The number of brave souls who sported both sideburns and mustaches peaked in 1877, though the study did not address their later resurgence in modern-day Bushwick.
Few were clean-shaven in the late 1800s, but by the 1970s, nearly everyone was:
What’s more, the great “beard wave” of 1844 to 1955 corresponded to a similar heydey, for whatever reason, of extra-wide skirts in the Richardson-Kroeber study:
Robinson’s theory as to why fashion—both sartorial and hirsute—seems to come in waves is this: Young people tend to eschew the tastes of their elders, but old trends seem new again after a sufficient amount of time has passed. So while long skirts may fall out of favor for one generation, their grandchildren will think they’re the cat’s pajamas.
And most men might have been anti-beard between the 1940s and 1976, but a spin around the nearest artisanal cheese shop today will show that’s no longer the case.