It was the first week of first year, classes hadn't started yet, the sun was shining -- so what was I doing? Getting a head start on my reading, of course! Yeah, right.
I was sitting on a towel in the old-dorm quad with my roommate, checking out hot boys and looking at our prospects for the upcoming year of dates, debauchery and, eventually, heartbreak. One guy caught my eye, so I brought him up in conversation at lunch with my roomie the next day.
"Wasn't he cute?" I asked in a desire for her approval of my potential new beau.
"Um, was he the one with the gelled hair?" my roommate replied.
I wasn't sure if he had gelled hair, and I wasn't sure why she was asking whether he used styling product -- and why it was even important for that matter.
Does gel matter? And if so, why?
These questions bring us to the great dichotomy:
GEL vs. SHAG.
Which is better, and what does each represent?
In order to fully understand the gel versus shag controversy, we must first define each side.
Gel can mean a variety of different things. Some guys only gel the front of their hair, creating a sort of roof-like formation on the hair directly over the forehead. Others gel their entire head, spiking the top of their hair and slicking back the sides or spiking all of the hair. Some gel their hair because they think it looks better, some need to tame flyaways, some don't like their hair to fall flat on their heads and boys with curly coiffes need gel to control a wild mane.
Shag is a little bit harder to define, as there is no actual product used in the hair that serves as evidence of the notorious shag. Shag is basically long hair. A good test is to look at the hair when the guy has a hat on. If a significant amount of hair is visible around the edge of the hat, if any hair forms bangs on the boy's forehead below the brim or if any hair forms "flips" or curls on the sides of the hat, the wearer is sporting the shag.
One of my best friends, a student at the University of Miami of Ohio, frequently seems to find shag on the lacrosse field. She actually calls it, "lacrosse hair."
Now that we've defined shag and gelled hair, what does each mean, and what does each style represent?
Annie Katz, a first-year College student from Macon, Ga., comments, "If there's one thing I hate, its gelled hair on boys. I just hate it."
My roommate and her friends from back home, who are from Charleston, S.C., also hate gelled hair.
I don't really care either way, and neither do my friends from high school. We're from Northern Virginia, which in Virginia is seen as an in-between, a group of suburbs that straddle the Southern style of the rest of the state and the conservative cosmopolitanism of the nation's capital.
Do I perhaps see a pattern emerging? A bunch of Southern girls hate gelled hair, while a bunch of "Northern" girls don't seem to mind it. Perhaps gelled hair is seen more frequently on Northern boys and the shag is seen more on Southern boys.
Perhaps the gelled hair is "Grease Lightning-esque," a hearken back to the 1970s where leather jackets and hair products ruled and anyone with flat, long hair was considered a "mama's boy." Also, some associate hair gel with the "Euro-look," an accessory to all-black or neutral-colored Banana Republic outfits.
The shag seems to represent the laidback South, here sunny days lounging on porches and drinking lemonade come to mind. Boys lounging around down South are to too easygoing to think of (gasp!) gelling their hair, and so they wear it au naturel. Wearing it any other way would imply that they are trying too hard and that they actually care what others think of their appearance. These are the same boys rocking the rainbows in sub-zero weather.
So, the hair debate seems to represent more than personal preference, more than mere styles of personal grooming. The dichotomy represents the division between North and South, between "whatever goes" and "whatever it takes," between two different styles of attracting the opposite sex.
Who ever thought that pomade could say so much?
Now, to my fabulous readers: Do you have any questions for moi? Want to know how to make a jeans and button-down shirt outfit more exciting or how to spice up the black pants and top combo for a date function? Wondering what "Vogue" thinks is a "must-have" this season? Simply need to ramble for a bit about fashion in general or trends around Grounds, or have any ideas for one of my columns? Send an email my way at fashion@cavalierdaily.com, and I'll see what I can do!
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