It's not the honey-flecked brown hair or hoop earrings that define Sam Larson's look. It's the 3-inch beard.
Larson, of Alameda, Calif., has been sporting it for a decade. He's worn it long and full. He's trimmed it when it's gotten scraggly. In fact, Larson doesn't give it much thought. He comes from a long line of beard bearers. All the Larson men back in Colorado wear them.
"I just like it," said the 28-year-old, chatting at Tip Top Bike Shop in Oakland, Calif., where he works and where it seems beards are as common an accessory as bike packs. "It keeps me warm."
Beards could be the biggest trend in facial hair since the '90s grunge goatee. In the past, beards reflected a mood or made a statement. That's still happening. But more and more men are sporting them just for style's sake.
Peek into the pubs on San Pablo Boulevard in Berkeley, Calif. Take a look at the hipsters in Oakland's Temescal district. They're moving past sexy stubble and into some serious hair territory.
So are the men of the red carpet. At last month's Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, it was hard to spot a clean-shaven face. Sting, actors Jeremy Piven and Vincent Kartheiser ("Mad Men"), and directors Sam Mendes and Ron Howard were among the many celebs sporting beards. It's the next expression in the evolution of male facial hair, says Allan Peterkin, a pogonologist, or beard scholar, and author of "One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair" (Arsenal Pulp, 2002).
"If you look at the 20th century, every decade has a little bit of fur," Peterkin said. In the 1950s, it was the pointy, beatnik goatee. In the 1960s, hippies grew out their hair - and their beards. The 1970s was a time of swinger mustaches, and in the 1980s, men wore designer stubble. The goatee of the 1990s had staying power, Peterkin says, and unleashed a whole expression of partial beards and facial hair combinations.
"The full beard is the next progression," he said. "It's about playful rebellion and being a free man. It's about saying, 'I'm not a corporate slave.'" On a purely superficial level, it is also one of the few ways a man can change up his look.
Even so, full beards aren't socially acceptable yet, at least according to Jack Passion, a Walnut Creek, Calif., musician and beard champion who heads to Alaska in May to defend his title at the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Passion attributes the growth in beards to an overall increased consciousness.
"Everything we've seen on television for the past 50 years told us we had to shave, and if we didn't, it was dirty," said Passion, who has a fan club of 1,500 Passionistas. "But now, there's a focus on sustainable practices. People are starting to say there are better ways to live. Men just want to see who they are and experiment with new looks."
And those looks can have layered meanings. Growing a beard can stand for affiliation, especially in sports. In some religions, it is a sign of mourning. Beards can also demonstrate support for a cause. Recall when David Letterman grew a beard last year to show support for the writers' strike.
Beards are also a quick and easy way to change an image.
"When Al Gore lost the election and was becoming an academic at Columbia University, he grew a beard," Peterkin said. The on-again, off-again beards of Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling are important accessories for actors who want to prove they're more than a pretty face, Peterkin says. Beards are quite favorable for men who are balding, he adds. Others might grow one to cover a double chin or make their faces appear bigger or more masculine.
Another beard bonus: Some women have a thing for them. "I've been into beards for five years," said Jennifer Matamoros, 32, of Oakland. "I think they're extremely sexy. It's that whole lumberjack thing."
Haseeb Wahedy of Vallejo, Calif., admits his short, kempt beard is popular with the ladies. He's been wearing it on and off for about two years, depending on his mood. "It's trendy. It's appealing. And I don't like to shave," Wahedy said.
Marty Parker of Denise's Barber Salon gets a bearded customer every now and then in his Oakland barber shop. Most men interviewed for this story groom their own, however. Parker, 63, wore a beard for 30 years but finally shaved it off in 2000 when it started turning gray. "I wanted to clean up my act a little bit too," Parker said.
But he wore it long and full throughout the 1970s in and around Berkeley - "Meant you didn't sell out," he said - until potential employers told him to trim it. When asked why he kept a beard for so long, he is blunt. "For one thing, it didn't hurt me with getting any young girls," he said.
But a beard backlash does exist. While you'll find beards in the halls of hospitals and dot-coms, they can be the kiss of death in politics and finance, Peterkin says. "William Howard Taft was the last president to sport facial hair, and that was just a mustache," he said.
When it comes to history, the beard's place varies. During Victorian times, a beard was a sign of great means. However, the more common images associated with the Great Depression are of bearded men standing in line at soup kitchens. And post-World War II, the assumption was that a guy with a beard had something to hide, Peterkin says.
Yet the postmodern beard is more elusive. It changes meaning. For some, it's Santa Claus. For others, Osama bin Laden. "It's all about your own experience," Peterkin said, adding that the full beard could also be an "answering back" to the metrosexual label. "The beard is macho," Peterkin said. "And it's something women can't do."
Lisa Sciacca isn't wild about her husband's full beard. "He doesn't keep up the loose, scraggly hairs," said Sciacca, who lives in Pacifica and preferred when Pete wore a goatee. "There are no straight lines, so it's just here and there and everywhere."
But she understands why it appeals to her husband, who works the graveyard shift at a San Francisco hotel.
"It's just easy," she said. "We always joke about women who spend an hour in the bathroom in the morning. Men can spend a long time in there, too."
