Mutterings and Musings

Behold! Beards!

PROMPT: What was cool when you were young but isn’t cool now? Is there anything that has become cool in recent years that wasn’t cool in your youth?

Having never been one of the Cool Kids, I really can't think! I guess it was all really silly little fashion things at school; like wearing your rucksack on only one shoulder (wearing it on both was utterly uncool), but as I spend a lot of my free time hiking and carrying several kilos of kit/water, to hell with that idea! Another thing that was totally deplored at school was 'flying' - having one or both shirt collars on the outside of your jumper/sweater, they should be tucked in! although as an adult I really don't see how that makes you cooler or not.

Since the start of lock-down 1 (i.e. April 2020 UK), Best Beloved has sported a trim little beard - to start with because he was working from home and couldn't be bothered to shave, and then later because people kept telling him how much better he looks.
I really can't think of that many guys who had beards fifteen-twenty years ago, but now it seems to be much more evenly split between the hairy and the cleanshaven (look, BB genuinely does look better with a beard. That doesn't mean I have to like it.), so I guess that's something that's become cooler. Brother-in-law sports a whole range of facial appearances from Wild Man of Woods and Home of the Lost Pygmy Tribes through to Perfectly Groomed Hipster or Utter Babyface Mr Cleanshaven.