Recently, I finished rereading it for the first time. Surprisingly, I actually had to buy it a second time, from a second hand store, and I’m pretty sure it was the copy I had originally but gave away to a hospital. Somewhat vexingly, the only library copy I could find was in the UCLA Law Library, which usually isn’t open to anyone except law students. Or maybe it was that you can’t borrow anything unless you’re in the law school. So I had to buy it again–and I’m pretty sure it was my old copy!
Anyhow, there’s a passage that has Hoyt Thorpe, who believes he has been placed on this Earth to provide the definition of “cool” for the rest of us, noticing contemptuously that some “dork” is wearing a part in his hair! Somehow I didn’t notice that the first time I read the book. But is that for real? Do young guys, or did they, not wear parts? I have no idea. I’m painfully oblivious to fashion in my own age group, and what I’m not oblivious to I wear just about the opposite. As for today’s college population, I can’t say I’ve noticed anything about wearing or not wearing parts; it seems to depend on the type of hair the guy has naturally.
I graduated college in 1995 and business school in 2001. I typically wore a haircut similar to the main character in the film The Wackness. In fact, I actually look a lot like him IRL. It was a fairly common haircut at the time.
Other popular styles included Brian Austin Green’s white boy fade as well as long Christian Slater / Ethan Hawke / Eddie Vedder sort of hair.
That’s more early to mid 90s though. As the decade progressed, shaved heads and short hair seemed to become more prevalent.
I think by “part” and “dork” haircut, he’s referring to guys with shortish hair who slick it all up with a well defined part. Sort of like a member of a douchebag fraternity in Van Wilder.
I was an undergraduate from 1998-2003, and yeah, as I remember doing anything to create a part in the hair was pretty dorky. Gelled or bedhead spikes were in, as were haircuts that were too closely cropped to part. So was long hair, but that parts naturally.
Reading that segment makes me think of the Campus Crusade for Christ people who were still wearing big eyeglass frames, slicking down their hair, and tucking polo shirts into their pleated khakis.
PS: msmith’s picture from The Wackness is dead on, too. That was an okay cool haircut. Short and gelled down was NOT.
Graduated college in 1997. “The Wackness” look was definitely one you would see around but I think it was fading out by the late 90s. My main association is with “bedhead” – artistically tousled, maybe a bit spiky, definitely no part. like these guys.
I agree that the style was dorky, but more me it was just the general shortness and use of Brylcream and similar products that made boys’ hair look so terrible. Possibly older guys and grown men with the right kind of hair can pull off the traditional pre-Beatles men’s haircut as seen on Mad Men, but younger boys’ hair just doesn’t have the fullness necessary for that. I know someone who’s been posting elementary school class pictures from the early 1960s, and all the boys’ hair looks awful. There’s more Dep or Brylcream than actual hair. Sometimes there’s a hint of a wave, opposite the part. It still makes me shudder to think of it.
I graduated in the late 90’s. If I was going to a formal affair, my hair was combed similar to “Don Draper”" from “Mad Men.” So, I had a part, but it was more of an extreme example of how I wore my hair then and now. Never got complaints. I did get a few compliments. I had a friend who could pull off a pompadour very well who got way more compliments.
I never liked books or films that made college seem like an extension of high school.
Upon reflection, the whole “grunge” thing was big - basically as long as you didn’t look excessively groomed it didn’t really matter whether your hair was long or short or in dreads or whatever. Longer hair parts naturally of course, but the idea is for it to look unintentional. Being disheveled was… pretty much the whole point of grunge. Kurt Cobain’s hair was parted, but it wasn’t parted if you know what I mean.
Oh Eddie Vedder, you’re so busy being deep, you don’t have time to comb your hair!
The Stone Temple Pilots rocked the full range of 90s hair options.
If you were going to groom, you had to do it ironically, by grooming like crazy, a la the pompadour of Jorg’s friend, or devising complex hair sculpture. Cause, you know, no corporate “indie” “movement” was gonna tell YOU not to care about hairstyling! That’s for sheeple!
It’s a complicated business, walking out your front door.
