Sideburns are nothing
new. They go in and out of fashion, and have for centuries. In
recent years, they seem to be enjoying an upswing in popularity, but we have
records of them dating back at least to the fourth century BCE, in a mosaic
that shows Alexander the Great sporting them. Depictions of Alexander
usually show him clean-shaven, since the Greek military of the time famously
forbade facial hair. (This was mostly
aimed at beards, which men might grow very long, giving the enemy something on
your face to pull in the heat of battle, potentially putting you at a
disadvantage.)
Is Alexander greater
with sideburns? or without?
The ancient Greeks might
have had a word for sideburns, or at least a way to describe them. In
America they were known as side-whiskers until the 1860s. Beards were getting to be more fashionable
than they had been in the early part of the century, and some men saw an
opportunity to use facial hair for an expression of style.
One such man was a Union
general in the Civil War. He was Ambrose Burnside, and he knew how to
rock side whiskers. He grew them long and thick, just like Martin Van
Buren did a couple decades earlier, but he linked them in the middle with a
thick moustache. His baldness is probably what made the effect all the
more striking. It was so striking, in
fact, that the style was named after him.
People took his name, shifted the syllables, and Burnside became sideburn.
The eponymous General
Burnside
After the Civil War,
Burnside went on to serve as governor of Rhode Island, and later senator, until
his death in 1881, at age 57. Still, the sideburn thrived. The term caught on, and men continued to wear
sideburns throughout the Victorian and Edwardian eras. They moved from a somewhat bold fashion
statement to take on a more conservative, even stuffy association. Young
men started shaving their faces, and were more inclined to wear just a trim
moustache, if any facial hair at all.
Beards didn’t completely disappear in America, of course, but their
prominence did fade.
They faded for a while,
at least. By 1960, the conservative look had become the clean-shaven one,
and wearing a beard was a little bit more bold. The counterculture of the
1960s embraced facial hair, as well as longer hair on men’s heads, and it was
often derided for it. Facial hair, like wild, unkempt hair, was a sign of
rebellion. A popular joke in the 1960s
went, “What do you call a hippie with a haircut? The defendant.” As the cultural tumult of the 1960s calmed
down, so did the hairstyles, but sideburns were quite common throughout the
1970s. They never really came back in fashion in full force, especially
during the relatively hairless 1980s, but in recent years, they’re increasingly
common.
“Hipster” beard today
vs. Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Hughes, circa 1916. The more things
change...
The funny thing is that
facial hair that would have been considered safe and conservative is often
derided as having a hipster cachet today. But wait another twenty years
and today’s young, bearded men (whether they’re hipsters or not) will still be
sporting their “hipster beards”, setting themselves apart from the rebellious
youths of the 2030s, who will no doubt be making a radical fashion statement
with a clean shave every morning!
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