As an actor, I'm lucky enough to play around with my appearance on a fairly regular basis. Or I consider myself to be fortunate to do so without cross-questioning of every choice I make. I often use it as an excuse to try out different variations of facial hair and haircuts because if it ends up looking like shit I can just blame it on the role. Oh yeah, I only look like a Neo-Nazi with my shaved head, but that's only because of the role. In truth, I've had haircut anxiety since being a wee lad because of a series of turtle cuts my mother gave me growing up. It resulted in my being a bit sensitive about who touches my head.
Facial hair is something that I cannot be luckier to have. Sorry to all the bros who can't grow any. I know it sucks and I remember the days when I couldn't. In the last year alone, I've fucked around with my facial hair in more ways than I can count. Most styles never leave the bathroom because they're hideous and only need to be seen by myself laughing in the mirror. However, on an extra special occasion, I'll have a mustache for a week or grow out a bit of a beard. Then shave it and go for my youthful look again. Nothing stays around too long because its fun to have, but hard to maintain.
Style has never been something I was particularly interested in when I was younger because my style was strictly limited to sweatpants and tees up until the later end of high school. This is when I actually slowly began to discover my own sense of style. Most people look at what I wear today and see a cowboy or a lumberjack, which is pretty accurate given the number of button ups I possess. It's true, I have a lot of button-ups, which is in part due to a company I worked for in New York several years back. That company provided me with clothing at a reasonable cost which allowed me to find things I felt represented a bit of myself. However, the truth of it is, most of what they sold was lumberjack cowboy outdoorsman style clothing. Now I'm no style guru and I'm still of the mindset that as soon as I have a woman in my life who knows something I certainly don't, my look will change again. Hopefully for the better.
Shopping for myself has given me a lot of opportunities to have some sort of external expression draped over my bod when I was otherwise limited to what my parents put under the Christmas tree. My man style is not purely dictated by self-expression because I have plenty of ways to do that. I write, paint, play piano, read, and act. Sometimes its based in practicality or need. For me what's always been appealing about the freedom of style, is the continuous flow of choices that I can personalize for my own enjoyment. Something I encourage men to do without having to feel like they need to impress the same people, or the right people, or any people whatsoever.
