Fashion News Flash: The ‘Stache

Today’s New York Times Styles section had a feature on the renewed popularity of the mustache. 

Happily married to a mustache-sporting fellow, I am a fan, but I know that it’s a look that doesn’t work for every guy.

I smiled when I read the article because it made me think of having read a fellow Mets blogger’s post a few years ago in which he described the mustache of then-infielder Jose Valentin giving him the look of a “porn star.  According to this article, “porn-star ‘stache” is well-known terminology for the “common mustache”.  Now I know.

The writer made references to ballplayers, citing both Jason Giambi’s “good luck” mustache of last season as well as the 1972 “Hairs vs. Squares” World Series, featuring Rollie Fingers, et al.

Having been featured in a GQ photo spread in their first season as Mets, I figure David Wright and Jose Reyes are probably the most fashion-savvy, trend-conscious players on the team.

How would they look, I wondered, if they show up in Florida participating in this so-called revival?

Judging
 by my PhotoShopping, I would say either of these guys could probably pull it off.
 

I tried the same experiment with Mike Pelfrey, expecting it to look comical, but–lo and behold–it rendered him a Tom Selleck look-alike:

I was pleasantly surprised with Pelfrey’s look, but as the article states, not everyone can pull it off.  If smirks and giggles follow a guy, perhaps it is not working for him.

Speaking of humiliation, don’t ya love those Just for Men commercials in which Keith Hernandez and Walt Frazier razz Emmitt Smith? 

“Your ‘stache is TRASH!”

(Of course Emmitt’s blunder was not the mustache itself but its COLOR.)

 

Just in time for the retro facial hair rage comes an enterprising seamstress and artist who has created the “mustache handkerchief” and is selling it on the artisan website Etsy.  The item features four different printed mustache silhouettes suitable for “trying on”. 

No expensive photo-editing software and time-consuming photo uploads involved! 

Even better, the hanky could save one the embarassment of enduring the unseemly infant stages of a mustache only to find, upon completion of the hair growth, that one’s appendage is woefully laughable.

 

Just a hunch:  I don’t think Dan Warthen is a candidate.