Eagle-eyed may spot that I've been around Hoxton on-and-off for the last few days. Always interesting, I was trying to describe a couple of the prevailing hairstyles to others less familiar with the area.
Most people know about hipster beards, which have been just that bit more pronounced in Hoxditch than elsewhere in London. It's been that perennial struggle to be proto-hipster before the image gets appropriated by vacuous trendies. Gandalf probably counts as proto.
But that's ever the challenge as beards, beanies, flat caps and turned up jeans with no socks rage through an area: the differentiation between the originals, the hobbyists and the fashion imitators is lost. Although, I have a sneaking suspicion that this recent selfie on twitter from a proper East London policeman is also the real thing.
However, beard-peak was charted as sometime last year, so like the long-gone Hoxton fin now only seen on a few television presenters, we are already entering a retro phase. How long before it becomes vintage?
Of course, we all know there is really no such thing as a hipster, but go with my self facilitating media node Nathan Barley-esque simplification for a moment.
There's a quick test. Talk Japanese novels or West Taliesin to a proto-hipster and they will up the game. Do the same to a trendy-hipster and they reply with a flat-white or a jam-jar of foaming gin molotov.
There's a similar trend amongst the signature looks for new bars blending the charm of Victorian squalor combined with -er- a sprinkle of Modern European cuisine. Give me a non-publicised fridge door leading to an unadvertised speak-easy any day.
But, back to the hair-styles. One of the Sunday papers produced this little reference diagram, as part of a piece about a new fold-out book called, yes, Haircuts of Hackney.
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