** Click here for Episode 182 **
“Why Miss Figgins…y-y-you’re beautiful!” people far and wide have stammered at Alec, as he took off his spectacles and shook out his prim bun (or similar):
I am a 28 year old shop supervisor, working in Oxford.
Until very recently my sartorial preference could be described as “windswept extra in a Nirvana video”. I wear beaten up old jeans, converse boots and a variety of black t-shirts and open shirts. Moreover, I had a massive mop of extremely curly, shoulder length, blondish-brown hair.
Last Wednesday, however, I finally got sick of the effort required in keeping my hair clean and tangle-free. I went to my local hairdresser and I was given a much more trendy short back and sides. Upon arrival at work on Thursday, there was a collective intake of breath of surprise at the change. Additionally some very regular customers asked me if I had just started (I’ve been there for nearly 3 years).
General consensus on my new look is that I now “look cool”. Given that I am still tall and lanky and still dress like 1992 never ended, I am somewhat sceptical of this new opinion.
So, please answer me this:
My whole life, have I only ever been a £25 haircut away from looking cool? Really? Is that all it took?
Yes! In fact, sometimes it only takes a careful blow-dry and a dressing-up montage – have you never seen any Hollywood films ever, Alec? But never forget that you’re still the same old dorky Alec beneath the hair, so even though Freddie Prinze Jr is now proudly taking you to the dance, to the shock of the In Crowd, you want to make sure that he’ll love the ugly duckling you really are.
The morals of the story are a) people are shallow, b) a decent haircut CAN be a passage to a new improved life, c) the 90s revival is only going to work with 21st-century styling.
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Answer Me This! Podcast 
July 13, 2011 at 12:51 am |
It’s nice to know that the movies weren’t lying about the makeover montages.