History’s hipsters – fashion for whiskers ‘dates back to 1800s’
THE FASHION for long sideburns was born not in the 1970s but in the Regency era a century and a half earlier, a historian has discovered.
The craze was so popular that men – and sometimes even women – were drawn to wearing fake whiskers in order to appear up with the times, even though the custom attracted abuse and ridicule from traditionalists.
“Whiskers quickly became an essential accoutrement to any young man – or ‘young buck’ as they were described – with social pretensions,” said Dr Alun Withey, of Exeter University, who made the discovery.
“By 1812 the trend was apparently in full flow, and certainly appears to have been popular in London.”
One correspondent to the Tradesman, in July that year professed astonishment at the “spreading proportion of hair on the human face”, describing it as nothing less than a “whiskered mania” which had “very far overstepped its bounds”.
It was also reported that women were drawing on false whiskers and training their hair to grow down the side of their faces.
The new trend created a market for various lotions and potions to help care for whiskers. Products such as “Russia Oil” claimed to make hair “grow thick and long, even in bald places, whiskers, eyebrows”.
In 1807, London perfumer John Chasson advertised his “Incomparable Fluid”, for changing hair, whiskers and eyebrows from grey or “red” to “beautiful and natural shades of brown and black”.
But just like the current beard trend, whiskers divided opinion.
Those with facial hair were accused not only of having suspect political affiliations and being of dubious moral character, but of appearing “monstrous”.
While some women appeared to embrace the fashion, others were not so sure. In 1800, Lady Melesina Trench, upon seeing a French Minister’s whiskers, wrote in her diary of the “dinginess of his appearance”.
The fashion slowly diminished in the 1820s, Dr Withey said.