ROUND 1
The Disciplinarian
A central American classic. This look has been sported by dapper gents and despots alike. Best worn with a steely gaze as adeptly demonstrated here by Quinn.
The Trucker
Lambchops for supper garnished with a well textured moustache, this is anything but mutton dressed as lamb. Browning returns to a bygone era of endless lonely highways punctuated by coffee and pie in roadside cafes. Jump in stranger, there´s plenty of room up front with me.
ROUND 2
ROUND 2
The Half David
Quinn here pioneers a ground breaking combination of cultures: Inca and R&B. Against a back drop of many cornered Inca stonework, Quinn pays homage to a man who, for a while, cornered the market of mediocre R&B. An allegory to his fading popularity, Quinn chooses not to wear David´s iconic moustache; hinting perhaps, that had he stayed loyal to his Southampton roots, things might have worked out differently for the twat.
Star-gazing Farmhand Comes to Town in Search of his Beloved Nelly after She Ran away from Home Because Her Father Told Her She Would Never Be a First Rate IT Consultant and Should Stick to Milking
This look practically speaks for itself.
ROUND 3
The Amish
Beautifully accessorized with a mast sticking perpendicular from the head and multiple wives. Quinn will certainly need plenty of courtisans to tend this chin pasture.
The Jolly Norton
Whether enjoying a joke with a passing photographer or simply writing an email in a bohemian café, The Jolly Norton just keeps on giving. Inspired by actor Ed Norton's turncoat nazi in TonyKaye's 'American History X', this is the ultimate in flexible beardry.
Castaway
Planning to get ship wrecked? This is the look for you. This is, the ONLY look. Scenario: You succeed in flagging down a sojourning albatross and escape your malnourished, undersaloned island paradise. You have shaved using a particularly sharp bit of shell that you found - you wanted to make yourself look nice for when you got back. But on returning, your friends and family reject you like a baby owl that has been handled by human hands and is eaten by its mother. They simply cannot accept your outlandish excuse for not being around to compliment their beards for the last few years without some sort of proof on your own cheeks and chin. Survivors, don't chop it, Aesop it!
The Badger Baiter
Care for some of my pine cones little badger? BLOOF! Badger mittens for little Mary. Yes that right, it's The Badger Baiter. The epitome of suave and bastard, you could talk a rodent into a catery with that moustache.
ROUND 5 (with special guest appearance)
Lip Candy
Nissan jets in from London, England to give us a taste of his casual/trim Lip Candy.
"Lip Candy" says Nissan, "is a look I wanted to bring to Pimp My Beard ever since I first read about it the Sunday Times Supplement. We`ve seen many original, one might even say, prodigous beards in the previous rounds and while I enjoyed their chameleonic lustre, a part of me was screaming out, 'Don`t forget your roots! Don`t forget your history!' So I was delighted when the organisers offered me this spot to show young beard and beardery enthusiasts that a bold, slap in the face with a gold brick wrapped in a slice of lemon moustache still carries a strong statement in the modern era." Indeed an intransient moustache, this is a look that says on the one hand, 'This is just something I threw on before I left the house' and on the other, 'Yes, I'll have the filet mignon.'
Benson & Hedges
Browning takes advantage of this reflective surface to deftly sport the Benson & Hedges. A look that caters for swimming pools, large water basins such as you might find in a restraunt or soya processing plant, the sea, salt flats and the hard of hearing. The Benson & Hedges whispers slithery introspections in the ear. A look for self re-discovery, remodeling, finding the inner bank robber, taxidermist or late 18th century rural pastor.
Looking for yourself? Look no further than the Benson & Hedges.
ROUND 6
Mad Dog
In this, the last of the current series of PMB, Browning suspects he bought the extra strong Fisherman's Friends instead of the normal strength ones he usually likes. This is a beard that requires pastel fresh breath: a cool, take five inhalation before I smash your suburb dwelling face in then lecture you on crop rotation. Grown in semi arid shrub land, this is doing a crossword puzzle in your own blood, this, is Mad Dog.
SEASON 2: ROUND 1
Do I smell barbeque? Newcomer to PMB, Jonathan "The Juggernaut" Cartwright, swings into town exhibiting some decidedly post apocalyptic panache. Disarmingly honest, Cartwright tells us, 'It was an accident! I once saw a young shepherd hand refused a cider at Chesire Inn. The prodigious rascal reappeared some minutes later with a highly relaxed caterpillar slung from his top lip designed, no doubt, to give himself the impression of being an older, more beardly endowed chap. He was immediately spotted for an imposter and duly sent packing. To this day, I have been struck by both his impish initiative and by how on earth he contrived to balance the creature, danglingly lazily from his lip, whilst matter of factly inquiring about the cellar temperature of the cider. This was precisely the moustachioed impudence I hoped to recreate when given my bow on PMB. Imagine my disbelief when my quivering travel mirror revealed that I had unwittingly inscribed armageddon around my mouth and chin!'
Indeed, anyone familiar with the work of Liv Tyler will no doubt understand the duel horrors of having their feuding father and finacee in space, battling against an asteroid on a collision course with earth, soon to herald the end of days. Portraying this on screen was a remarkable achievement. But reproducing such biblical foreboding's on one's face, albeit coincidentally, takes balls. Juggernaut, we, the humble folk of PMB, salute you.
SEASON 2: ROUND 1
Judgement Day
Do I smell barbeque? Newcomer to PMB, Jonathan "The Juggernaut" Cartwright, swings into town exhibiting some decidedly post apocalyptic panache. Disarmingly honest, Cartwright tells us, 'It was an accident! I once saw a young shepherd hand refused a cider at Chesire Inn. The prodigious rascal reappeared some minutes later with a highly relaxed caterpillar slung from his top lip designed, no doubt, to give himself the impression of being an older, more beardly endowed chap. He was immediately spotted for an imposter and duly sent packing. To this day, I have been struck by both his impish initiative and by how on earth he contrived to balance the creature, danglingly lazily from his lip, whilst matter of factly inquiring about the cellar temperature of the cider. This was precisely the moustachioed impudence I hoped to recreate when given my bow on PMB. Imagine my disbelief when my quivering travel mirror revealed that I had unwittingly inscribed armageddon around my mouth and chin!'
Indeed, anyone familiar with the work of Liv Tyler will no doubt understand the duel horrors of having their feuding father and finacee in space, battling against an asteroid on a collision course with earth, soon to herald the end of days. Portraying this on screen was a remarkable achievement. But reproducing such biblical foreboding's on one's face, albeit coincidentally, takes balls. Juggernaut, we, the humble folk of PMB, salute you.
The Commuter
Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's got the dopest moustache of them all? The answer, yet another of the boisterously bearded young men to be found delivering their portfolios to offices of PMB in recent months, Andrew "The Commuter" Bell. Known to many as the Casanova of the Circle and District, Bell takes A to B travel to unprecedentedly dashing new heights. Personally holding the London Underground Zones 1 and 2 record for most heads turned per journey and rumoured to Banksy's muse, Bell poses for us here in the full splendor of his chosen habitat.
Behind the camera, I was witness to a scene that tells the story of the power of this facial finess more aptly than I could ever describe. Mere seconds after clicking shoot on my Song Cybershot DSC HV7X, an Eastern European lady and her tall friend, attracted by the play of the strip lighting as it's rays danced across Bell's silken tache, looked full on into the beam of his gaze and passed out in pure 1950's cinematic theatre. Naturally, Bell was swiftly across the carriage to fan the assortedly sized ladies with his t-shirt that he had removed with a artful whipping motion. The cool and sweet scented air soon revived the ladies who thanked him in graciously stupefied murmurs before losing consciousness once more. This was beardery at its most smoldering - give him an inch and he'll take your grandmother.
The Able Mason
Having taken a hiatus from PMB to "rethink himself", Browning returns with this uncompromisingly 3 fingered ( middle finger of left hand, v or "peace sign" on right hand) dismissal of narrow beardedness - the struggle against which, the followers of PMB make their daily toil.
In typical firebrandish tone, Browning told us, "As PMB has grown, its principles of beardery have disseminated futher and wider and while these have been received gladly onto many a face across the continents, they have also come into conflict with some of the more conservative elements in mainstream beardery. We're told you 'You can't work in a paper mill with a beard like this, you can't come into this supermarket with a beard like that.' People need to be able to see the beard, but also to see beyond it. At PMB we've grown up with the philosophy that a beard is both expression and mask and we've had enough of people saying, 'That's a bricklayer's moustache, oh well, you must be a bricklayer.' Maybe this bricklayer's also a dancer, or a javelin expert. We've got to persevere with beards that teach the obstinately narrow bearded, that this can, and often is the case."
To promote that message, Browning gives us, The Able Mason. Cult goer by night, wolf whistler by day, this is the art of expecting the unexpected; this is the geometry of biggotry. One fears however, that the subtly of this lesson in beardery may be lost on precisely the narrow bearded conservatives that Browning hopes to reach. Nevertheless, PMB and Browning will fight to the end, "People say you can tell a lot about a man by his beard, well I've decided to wear my beard on my sleeve.
SEASON 2: ROUND 2
Brave New World
When, in the winter of 98 (I was
on a skiing holiday with a lesbian named Crayons) this editor was quizzed on the
subject of transgender beardery, this editor is ashamed to say that he scoffed
at the idea. “Show me a woman, or a 60-40 hermaphrodite for that matter, with a
fully seeded beard or moustache and I’ll show you a man in a dress.” He said,
before it was pointed out that some women do carry an amount of upper lip fluff;
“But does it bristle?!” He boomed, scaring a nearby vole into river, “Does it
resist a stiff breeze, harbour crumbs and seem to growl at the touch?!” The
enquirer had to admit that it did not.
This editor now reproaches himself for such defensiveness. He has now known several women and no longer fears them or any possible attempts to usurp the theatre of beardery from menfolk such as they might make. In short, and by means of an overdue apology, PMB welcomes its first transgender beard, modelled here by Emily, “The truncheon” McNulty. PMB regards this a significant moment in beardery and Emily, not Pankhurst, had this to say, “Finally some recognition you utter shits.” And later this, (gruff voice, perhaps that of a Northumberland butcher) “Dodgems, dodgems! One pound a quarter hour!” The Truncheon's comments elucidate the duplicitous nature of both sexuality and the beard, and by calling into question her sanity, that of personality itself.
Drawing this historic round of Pimp my Beard to a close, we humbly ask that when beards and breasts hit the front covers of the tawdry fashion and "celeb" magazines, you remember that you saw them here first, as we welcomed you, to a Brave New World.
When, in the winter of 98 (I was
on a skiing holiday with a lesbian named Crayons) this editor was quizzed on the
subject of transgender beardery, this editor is ashamed to say that he scoffed
at the idea. “Show me a woman, or a 60-40 hermaphrodite for that matter, with a
fully seeded beard or moustache and I’ll show you a man in a dress.” He said,
before it was pointed out that some women do carry an amount of upper lip fluff;
“But does it bristle?!” He boomed, scaring a nearby vole into river, “Does it
resist a stiff breeze, harbour crumbs and seem to growl at the touch?!” The
enquirer had to admit that it did not. This editor now reproaches himself for such defensiveness. He has now known several women and no longer fears them or any possible attempts to usurp the theatre of beardery from menfolk such as they might make. In short, and by means of an overdue apology, PMB welcomes its first transgender beard, modelled here by Emily, “The truncheon” McNulty. PMB regards this a significant moment in beardery and Emily, not Pankhurst, had this to say, “Finally some recognition you utter shits.” And later this, (gruff voice, perhaps that of a Northumberland butcher) “Dodgems, dodgems! One pound a quarter hour!” The Truncheon's comments elucidate the duplicitous nature of both sexuality and the beard, and by calling into question her sanity, that of personality itself.
Could there be a more
fitting epitaph to single sex beardery?
Drawing this historic round of Pimp my Beard to a close, we humbly ask that when beards and breasts hit the front covers of the tawdry fashion and "celeb" magazines, you remember that you saw them here first, as we welcomed you, to a Brave New World.
PIMP MY BEARD SPECIAL: PIMP MY SI!
Diminishing Returns
|
| Nissan's legendary debut in 2011 |
In 2011, an up-and-coming freelance male grooming consultant embroidered the face of masculinity with a message for our times. As soft as lambswool, yet with the intoxicating odor of cuban cigars and plimsoles fresh from the factory, Lip Candy was born. The message, was simple: Pass The Hoi Sin, Immediately. I'm Gonna Smother This Mother! Now, moutachioed sage and all round pheasant, Nissan, returns with a manifesto for the metrosexual man.
Striding into PMB's studio in Maida Vale like a cat in pyjamas, Nissan stops and takes a discerning look about him. "So this is where it all started, eh?" I humbly correct him that we moved premises from Canning Town in 2013, before inviting him over to what we're contractually obliged to call, The Remmington Total Groom Zone. The razor giant offered to facilitate our move following suspected arson from a rival beardery magazine. Complications with our insurance meant it was necessary to avail ourselves of Remmington's generosity, despite the funding proffered by our most eminent subscribers. Without what Remmington were putting on the table however, we wouldn't have been able to offer the in-house beardery that had become this editor's solution to the increasing competition from copy-cat facial hair weeklies that had been springing up all over the place since the summer of 2011. I explained all this to Nissan and he quipped amiably that he hoped Lip Candy had had nothing to do with it all. I remarked that the unprecedented popularity of Lip Candy undoubtedly sparked a wave of beardery movements at that time, yet any competition that it had generated for PMB was tenfold compensated by the privilege of being the first to review his now iconic tache. We shared a moment contemplating this. It evoked a scene of Bono and The Edge reflecting on recording The Joshua Tree whilst sitting on the veranda of a house one of them had just bought with its proceeds, which were still rolling in many years later. Nissan glided over to The Remmington Total Groom Zone. He eyed its ample resources with circumspection as he ran his finger idly across the porcelain of the newly-installed Armitage Shanks deep-basin sink. I was about to ask him what he had in mind for the special edition when he commandingly held his index finger aloft and pressed it to my lips. I knew the time for talking was over. Hailing the photographer with a subtle gesture, so as not to disturb the artistry of our guest, I sat down and watched Nissan go to work.
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| Nissan. Diminishing Returns, 2015 |
For three and a half hours I looked on, entranced, as Nissan produced his tryptic: Diminishing Returns.
"It's all about the process," says Nissan (his first utterance, fully 80 minutes into his sculpting). "After Lip Candy I experimented with other styles and nothing felt comfortable. Everything felt contrived - I knew who I was and I was Lip Candy. Every step I took away from it, diminished me. Yet, determined not to pass into beardery intransigence - which has been the downfall of many tache luminaries - I knew I couldn't just rest on Lip Candy forever. That's when I starting thinking about the myriad moustaches that must be hidden within Lip Candy. I've named this approach Diminishing Returns as a warning to those heavily involved in the beardery scene. Of course it's part of our vocation to experiment, to be pioneers, to break new ground, yet it's frivolous if our work loses sight of the essence that drives us to do so. I believe that is the difference between fashion and style."
A true gent to the last, we sat and discussed moorings and anchorage for light to medium weight non-commercial vessels over a couple of milky teas before it was time for Nissan to leave. Slinging his tan leather jacket over his shoulder, Nissan casually mounted his scooter and flicked a military salute my way. He patted his trouser pockets for phone - wallet - keys, before zipping off to the next of his day's engagements, endorsing a new ready meals venture by Pascal Chimbonda.
SEASON 3: ROUND 1
SEASON 3: ROUND 1
Common Cents
Dollar Dollar bill y'all? Oooh, lets catch the Euro Star! Swap your daughter for some Dinar. Slap your Shilling around. Get your hands dirty in the Zloty potty. Rub one out at the Rupee raffle. Can't you see it's all Wong? Pawn in our Pesos as we Pound the vadge of the Cypriot Lira? Get Real, Brasil! We need to talk about Capitalism. A penny for your thoughts.
Nothing delights the PMB community more than to welcome a new member to the bosom of our velcro embrace. Season 3 is thus pledged to the next generation; the dewy eyed, bushy lipped progeny that must carry the clippers whence the grooming fathers have passed on. Firstwhile, we present Gavin Humongous Finney, with his dashing diatribe, Common Cents.
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| Gavin Humongous Finney: Common Cents |
"Like so many of the kids in our town, my squad and I would while away our summers on the banks of the River Wey, satirizing swans and chewing lightbulb filaments for kicks." Recalls Finney. "Then one day, Martin didn't turn up. He'd got a job running girls and liquorice for a corporate financier in Lewisham. I was only a junior member of our squad at the time but I was indignant. I couldn't believe that he was gone, just like that. Swept away to a life of six figure transactions, as many Kit Kat Chunkies as he could eat, while here we were sharing out a single bar between five or six of us - freezing it beforehand, so it broke more evenly. It was watershed moment in my political awakening, I just didn't know how best to make my stand. It was a painful existence - never finding expression for the sickly injustice that welled in my pancreas. That is until I came across an article anticipating the 3rd Season of Pimp My Beard™ that had been used as a coaster in my local Nero's. I ran home past the river to get an especially snide barb in at the swans for old time's sake, and got straight to work. I never thought anything would come of it when I sent away the photos during PMB's last unsolicited submissions window. Many of our old squad have moved on now. Several more snatched away in their prime by the claws of Capitalism to work for hedge funds, wholesale foods, government and the fisheries. I just hope that seeing my old mug bearding the burden of a dollar sign knocks some Cents back into them! Last thing I heard Martin was doing the fonts for numbers on the Nasdaq. Perhaps if this reaches him he'll give me a call."
