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A CBC piece last night had a Finnish immigrant chiding Canadians (hilariously and with much justice) on our lack of strategies for coping with winter. During the course of this he managed to find and question some of the idiots who walk around in January without hats because they don't want to get their hair messed up (slightly fewer of these this January, due to extreme temperatures).
It occurred to me to add this to some observations of mine regarding contemporary hairstyles. For several years now I've occasionally tried to imagine how the world would look to a time-traveler from the past, and the thing that always startles my imaginary time-traveling friends is how slovenly everyone looks, in part because of the bed-head hairstyles. I then explain to them what huge amounts of effort actually go into those 'dos to make them look messy in just the right way. Now it occurs to me that a further example of the tyranny of casual style is the fear of "hat hair," which causes people to expose themselves to frostbite in winter and sunburn and potential skin cancer in summer.
I've also noticed that the foregoing applies mostly to white people, especially women. This struck my attention last summer on Spadina: Asian women wearing sunhats - check - almost goes without saying; black women wearing sunhats - check - yes, quite a lot of the time; white women wearing sunhats - U.V.? what's that?
Sheesh.
Actually, Spadina is where I make a lot of climate- and clothing-related observations. A couple of years ago I was struggling against the wind one bitterly cold February morning and looked up to see a billboard of a nude supermodel, posed in a nice warm studio somewhere, smugly declaring "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur." It wasn't the first time I'd encountered the slogan but it was the first time I'd seen it in such a badly-chosen time and place. If those had really been the only two choices, I would at that moment have cheerfully killed Bambi's mother with my bare hands.
It occurred to me to add this to some observations of mine regarding contemporary hairstyles. For several years now I've occasionally tried to imagine how the world would look to a time-traveler from the past, and the thing that always startles my imaginary time-traveling friends is how slovenly everyone looks, in part because of the bed-head hairstyles. I then explain to them what huge amounts of effort actually go into those 'dos to make them look messy in just the right way. Now it occurs to me that a further example of the tyranny of casual style is the fear of "hat hair," which causes people to expose themselves to frostbite in winter and sunburn and potential skin cancer in summer.
I've also noticed that the foregoing applies mostly to white people, especially women. This struck my attention last summer on Spadina: Asian women wearing sunhats - check - almost goes without saying; black women wearing sunhats - check - yes, quite a lot of the time; white women wearing sunhats - U.V.? what's that?
Sheesh.
Actually, Spadina is where I make a lot of climate- and clothing-related observations. A couple of years ago I was struggling against the wind one bitterly cold February morning and looked up to see a billboard of a nude supermodel, posed in a nice warm studio somewhere, smugly declaring "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur." It wasn't the first time I'd encountered the slogan but it was the first time I'd seen it in such a badly-chosen time and place. If those had really been the only two choices, I would at that moment have cheerfully killed Bambi's mother with my bare hands.
