How do you know you are getting old? Some might say it's when you can't get into bed without a hot water bottle, and can't get out without a walking stick. Perhaps it's when the first grey hairs appear or even earlier when you can no longer call them laugh
Eva Bradley: Valid fashion criticism or age bias? It's a close shave
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Eva Bradley
But like so many respectable traditions, shaving has fallen foul of the 21st-century predilection towards scruff. Women spend hours in front of the mirror in a bid to achieve the perfectly imperfect "bed head", pyjama pants have become the outfit of choice at certain supermarket chains and expensive designer jeans come ready-ripped or pre-worn in case anyone presumed the wearer might - gasp - have overdressed.
I'm not advocating for a world where socks are pulled knee-high and top buttons are always done up but guys - a shave. Really. Is it so hard?
I understand the genesis for the latest trend. And I don't blame David Beckham and Brad Pitt. Honestly, I don't. If I were continually voted among the world's most attractive men year after year, I too might find my standards slipping a bit or even consider a deliberate drop in grooming standards if only to make it more fair for everyone else.
But regular guys? Joe Publics going about the daily grind in off-piste provincial New Zealand? Unfortunately what has failed to translate from GQ Magazine to the real world is that designer stubble without the Gucci glasses and Giorgio Armani suit is just stubble.
And while Sunday morning while mowing the lawn is entirely the right time and place to skip a shave, there are certain days in a man's life which - even if you are David Beckham - should start with a razor. As a wedding photographer who spends many painstaking hours digitally smoothing the skin of brides who have already spent hours in front of the mirror in order to look absolutely perfect, it is heartbreaking to see how many grooms now wait at the top of the aisle looking like they've rolled out of bed after a three-day bender on their stag do.
Or am I just showing my age? Do I just not "get it"? Am I no different from my grandmother who went to her grave still lamenting the fact her eldest daughter got married to a guy with longer hair than her and sideburns that looked like a uncontrolled gorse bush?