Chanel has formally announced Timothée Chalamet as the face of its best-selling men’s fragrance Bleu de Chanel. The 27 year-old French-American actor was spotted filming in New York with none other than Martin Scorsese, who has a long-running advertising contract with the brand.
So what? Chanel’s choice of Chalamet is commercially smart, and symbolic. His gender-fluid style epitomises a modern version of masculinity that has become big business – the global market for male grooming products will be worth $73 billion in 2023, up 27 per cent since 2018.
Smells like Tim’s spirit. Chalamet serves aloof sexuality and emotional sensitivity wrapped in luxury togs topped off with exquisitely tousled hair. Being a bona fide acting talent (which will surely help the Scorsese chemistry), he’s a busy man, too. His turn as everyone’s favourite crazed chocolatier Wonka is out this December and he starts filming Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown with Elle Fanning this summer. So he can’t possibly be expected to do his own hair as well. Happily, talent agency The Wall Group represents the starriest of “stylists, hair stylists, makeup artists and manicurists’” and has set Tim up with hotshot personal groomer Jamie Taylor, who also coiffes and primps Gucci muse and Met Gala kitten Jared Leto.
Celebrity boy-sturisers. The new masculinity all-stars don’t just advertise other brands’ products – they create their own. Leto launched his beauty brand Twentynine Palms last autumn, which creates products “inspired by the majesty and myth of the desert.” His Desert Tumbleweed shampoo, which comes in an all-important “shower-safe vessel”, is a snip at £44. Pop megastar Harry Styles’ Pleasing brand launched a gender neutral “clean, vegan and cruelty-free” colour cosmetics range last September in collaboration with Paris-based fashion designer, Marco Ribeiro. Pleasing’s website warns that its bright pink La Vie En Rose Vif pigment cream is “not for use around the eye area.”
The Asos of male beauty British-based online retailer Mankind.co.uk, which was bought by The Hut Group for £2.5 million in 2010, did £7.5 million in global sales in 2022. While sales of traditional cosmetics declined in lockdown, the pandemic spawned a plethora of new British male grooming entrepreneurs whose day jobs were stymied by lockdown: natural skincare brand Aremti (face wash, £10) was launched by an out-of-work West End performer, organic fragrance and soap brand Abel Burners (body wash, £14) was originally a side hustle for a pair of wedding photographers and gender inclusive haircare brand Alott (shampoo bar, £16) was launched by a barber whose barbershop was temporarily closed.
All made up. A growing handful of male MUAs (makeup artists) are now taking centre stage in the colour cosmetics industry – Maybelline has just appointed Manny Gutierrez Jr as its first male ambassador. But despite the mainstreaming of drag culture, popularity of K-pop and Styles’ best efforts, the British male beauty triumvirate is still plain old skin, hair and teeth. British GQ’s grooming channel this week featured “How to make a hairy back less hairy” and a review of a nose hair trimmer. YouGov data from 2019 showed that only 1 per cent of British men wore makeup everyday compared to 28 per cent of women.
Barberama. Following the literal growth of beards in lockdown, British barbershop culture is flourishing. Relatively low financial barriers to entry and, thanks in part to Love Island, relatively high manscaping standards has seen the sector boom. In the UK, over 3,500 new barbershops opened between 2017 and 2022, taking the total number to well over 15,700. No pressure, chaps.
Also, in the nibs
The Queen’s former dresser has been booted from Windsor
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