Goodbye smoothie - it's time to grow

The backlash against Metrosexual Man has begun. In a typical fashion industry about-face, the waxed, buffed and manicured male body is demode, and the rough, hairy beast is back.

Say goodbye to smooth-skinned swains such as Orlando Bloom - it's follicularly blessed pin-ups such as Viggo Mortensen, Jude Law and, Mr Muscle Tuft himself, Burt Reynolds, that are to the fore of the new breed of retrosexuals.

Retrosexuals reject the implied effeminacy of rigorous personal hygiene in favour of the natural approach that reeks of little more than testosterone and Brut.

Poster boys for extreme grooming such as model Freddie "chest-wax" Ljungberg and David Beckham fan the flames of this inverted body snobbery.

And when a man's got a cuter bum and smoother legs than his girlfriend, it might be high time for macho stereotypes to rear their ugly heads.

After all, you couldn't envisage the fragrant Mr Metrosexual showing much animal passion. It might ruin his Jil Sander suit.

Peacock-male syndrome may be money in the bank for the international beauty conglomerates, but all those radiant alpha males shift the goalposts for their significant others.

More to the point is the question of whether post-post-feminists really want to date Piltdown Man.

Tom Ford, outgoing creative director of the Gucci Group, certainly wants us to think so, judging by his current campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent perfumes M7 and Rive Gauche Pour Homme, in which models display chest hair so luxuriant that it could win "Best in Show" at Crufts.

After 20 years of smooth-bodied models, the shock of seeing major chest hair on a billboard in New York's Times Square is as shocking as underarm hair in Vogue.

Fashion's Mr Big considers "natural bush" to be "masculine", and is invariably to be seen with one of his signature white shirts unbuttoned to the groin, displaying impressive chest-hair cleavage.

"What Tom has done is give us an extreme example of masculinity," says Mark Evans, head of the Models 1 Men's Division. "It's the antithesis of Freddie Ljungberg's Calvin Klein underwear campaign. Freddie is quite hairy, and they obviously made him shave his chest. It doesn't look natural."

Fendi's current ad campaign has twinned Linda Evangelista with the stubbly, shaggy-maned Models 1 hottie Brad Kroenig, who wouldn't look out of place in the chorus of The Lion King.

"It's about designers realising that there has to be some kind of identification with the model if that ad's going to sell perfume or clothes," explains Evans.

"Five years ago, if you went to a model agency and asked for guys with hairy chests, you'd have had a problem. Not any more."

The tide has turned against the gawky, doe-eyed adolescents who populated catwalks and men's fashion bibles such as Arena Homme +, Dazed & Confused, The Face and i-D.

For Spring 2004, the hot male models were boho, with Heathcliff locks and stubble you could sharpen an axe on.

Some of the designers who once pushed hairless young pups have also realised that you don't sell coats with a £1000 ($2700) price tag to grown-ups by modelling them on kids who look ill at ease in cashmere. "We've gone for Americana this season, with much healthier, fitter guys reminiscent of vintage Bruce Weber ad campaigns in the 1980s," says the art director of Arena Homme +, Tim McIntyre.

"A lot of them are a little unshaved, but we haven't gone for hairy. "

But natural bush isn't cutting it at the London male-grooming emporium The Refinery.

"There's nothing sexy about a hairy back," says therapist Kim Broomfield.

Of all hair or not debates, nothing is more dividing - of generations particularly - than the moustache. But here too things might be starting to change.

It was once a sign of virility and sexiness, but most young Westerners now assign three possibilities to the moustache wearer - porn star, cop or homosexual.

So while many adventurously accessorise their mugs with facial hair of various shapes and styles, few dare wear the solo moustache.

Esquire magazine's editor-in-chief, David Granger, reckons the moustache is fighting an uphill battle because when men look back at their life in photos, the ones in which they look the worst are the moustache years.

And the legacies of Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein have not helped the cause.

The moustache last lived in full glory in the 70s and early 80s, when studs such as Joe Namath, Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck kept it riding high.

But Granger is predicting a return.

"I'm not sure we'll ever have a Selleck-inspired golden age again," he said, "but as the goatee fades, the moustache will come back."

- INDEPENDENT