Status of Beards and Whiskers in 1923
The denizen of the French Latin Quarter formerly went bearded; but not to-day. Not, at least, the real Frenchman. Beards are disappearing from Europe, says the observant London weekly, John o’ London’s, except in Czecho-Slovakia, where wearing them is regarded as a patriotic duty. We read:
“In England nowadays beards are rare enough to be conspicuous, and even the mustache is disappearing. The King has followed the fashion of his father, and Mr. Augustus John carries on the tradition of ‘whiskers and art.’ Mr. Frank Swinnerton is distinguished among the younger literary men by a Shakespearean-Conrad beard, and Mr. Silas Hocking is bearded like the pard. Mr. Bernard Shaw’s flaming beard—gray now, alas— was for two decades a banner of revolt.
“Even in France, owing to the new love of sport and the influence of Mr. Gillett, the beard and the whisker are the signs of yesterday. Anatole France, M. Poincare, and the Paris correspondent of The Times are bearded. M. Tristan Bernard, the dramatist, has (or had) a luxuriant crop. But the young Frenchman is clean-shaven. No French actor copies the famous Mounet Sully and plays Hamlet with a beard, and the beards of the Quartier Latin are all American.”
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