FUN WITH THE BUN

The diminutive Man-Bun Fedora, latest fashion trend. [Image credit: Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.]

I’ve been around the block a few times... if by “been around the block” you mean “taken a ride around the Sun.” More than a few times, in fact. Which means I’ve seen fashion trends come and go, come and go.

In the fullness of time, I have seen tie widths go from narrow to ridiculously wide, back to narrow again. Now that I rarely wear ties, they seem to have settled at a reasonable width somewhere between the extremes.

Trousers, AKA pantaloons, AKA pants, have had pleats sometimes, sometimes not. Their legs have flared anywhere from not at all to the ridiculous bell-bottoms of the early 1970’s; their waists have done everything from hugging the hips to threatening an assault on the Adam’s apple.

Having survived the 1970’s, a decade that fairly bristled with fashion faux pas - leisure suits, platform shoes, Qiana shirts open to the navel - there are no horrors at the haberdasher’s that I cannot handle. (No, I never owned a leisure suit, thanks Gawd.)

This, though - this might just send me over the edge. Yes, the tiny-ass fedora - just big enough to perch atop a Man-Bun - is now, apparently, a Thing.

I have not seen one of these out in the Real World yet, but it’s just a matter of time. It is, I suppose, the natural progression of things. Just as a few experimental tokes of weed after the high school prom inevitably lead down the slippery slope to jamming a spike full of China White into the veins between your toes (all the other blood vessels having already been rendered nonfunctional by overuse), so does wearing a beard and a wooden bow tie lead one to wearing a miniature Panama hat atop one’s Bro-Pony.

Happily, despite my love of headgear, I am safe from this newest Fashion Fad. Even were I interested in cultivating a Man-Bun, my headly foliage is so diminishèd from its former luxuriant state that there is no point to it. Why, even were a miniaturized colander available, I could not provide a topknot worth perching it upon.

Of course, guys, if you just gotta have one of these ridiculous little hats, there’s another head upon which you could wear it. I leave that to my Esteemed Readers’ perfervid imaginations.