Good Indie Grooming

By Matthew Stefanson
[Grooming]
What steps should you take to perfect the indie look?  Matthew Stefanson takes an entertaining glimpse at the style of the moment.
Indie kids are a slovenly lot.  To the untrained eye they appear to be a bunch of no-good slackers who own 40 pairs of Chuck's and no razors or shampoo.  Of course, to the learned observer, they are actually meticulously filthy.  Their particular brand of grooming is so precise that it appears to not be there at all, but you don't get those results from just not caring.  No, it takes hours of careful ignorance and plenty of lazy attention.

But it's not beyond the realm of the common man.  You too can look like you graduated with a useless BFA and 40,000 dollars of debt, even if you are a productive member of society.  No longer will you have to shamefully hide your face in dingy nightclubs.  Anyone can cultivate the look, as long as they follow a few simple rules.

Hair

The first thing you have to realize is that any cut you can give yourself or finagle out of a relative, friend or girlfriend is much cheaper and much more valuable to your credibility than one you get in a salon.  Real hipster kids don't even cut their hair.  They just wait until they can grab a good fist of it and lop it off with a kitchen knife.

The secret to successful indie haircuts is a finely tuned sense of negligence.  You want to be able to roll out of bed with the hair that you're going to have all day, though if you're still following a hygiene routine that keeps you smelling fresh, this can be difficult.  In a perfect world, you just wouldn't wash your hair, but that look doesn't stay good forever.  Instead you should be washing it only once every four days and on that unfortunate day when your hair is clean and therefore not matted to your head, you should tame it with so much product that it looks like you never cleaned it at all.

Facial Hair

The best option is either a full beard or a moustache, but if you're unable to grow either of those satisfactorily, then just maintain a three or four day growth at all times.  You never want to be clean-shaven, because that in no way makes you more sallow or interesting.  With this in mind, buy a beard trimmer, one with attachments that allow you to cut your hair to a certain length.

Keep in mind, you're far too busy to shave, you have an important date at the coffee shop where you will sit and read Camus, whether or not you care about philosophy.
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