Bald is the new sexy On the commemorative coins released by Birmingham Mint for the forthcoming wedding of British Prince William and Kate Middleton,the prince,unlike his real self,has a head full of hair. Britain,where hair transplants for men are now the high-street rage,has a royal debate on its head. The prince seems content with his now scanty strawberry-blond crown. But the artist who chose a public image to put out found it better to restore his full head of hair. Like Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan,you might say. And Harsha Bhogle,Shane Warne,Graham Gooch,Ricky Ponting,Virender Sehwag and Sir Elton John. All of whom have spent quality time with hair surgeons that has yielded fruit. But thats an old-school male obsession. Fashions New Testament signals otherwise. It gives a thumbs-up to a natural bald head. A survey in Psychology Today magazine argued that women may lust after toy boys and soccer players in the buff,but average guys (bald too) do equally well in real life. According to the survey,only one per cent of British female respondents voted for a head full of hair. Kate Middleton is clearly among the other 99 per cent. So is youngistan,for whom Raghu Ram and Rajeev Laxman,judges on the popular reality TV show Roadies are heartthrobs. That may also be the reason why an increasing number of men,designer Krsna Mehta included,deliberately resort to a bald pate despite having a generous sprout. Au naturel is fashions fittest trend,and the smartest are following it. Fashion is a kinder planet than it used to be; its more accepting of who we are,its sensitive to all things organic and green,it welcomes plus-sized models (even Miuccia Prada did so),or those who have battled diseases and returned to a New Day on the ramp. Last September,at Berlin Fashion Week (Spring Summer 2011),German designer Patrick Mohr sent down the ramp professional male and female models who were made up to look bald,yellow-complexioned,with thin facial hair. Artificial baldness increased the wow factor of female stars like Demi Moore,Halle Berry,and Indian models like Persis Khambatta,Nafisa Ali (photographed bald by Prabuddha Dasgupta when she was a model in the early Nineties) and now,Diandra Soares,whose shaven head catches the spotlight on the ramp. Then why cant real baldness (unreal too) do the same for men? In fact,among men,there is a sturdy self-assurance about baldness (think National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon) that the likes of Salman Khan are unable to find as reassuring as the crores they make. You need a super high-testosterone swagger to pull off the bald look. Why are Salman and Hrithik shy of it? If they can bare their bodies,why not bare their scalps? If Demi Moore was hot with her shaven head,Bruce Willis was the ultimate bald sex symbol. In an interview,Hollywood star John Wayne talked about the lack of privacy that the press left him with,adding that he had to dive below deck to put on his hair-piece whenever they flew over his yacht. How unnerving. If thats not enough to deter the celebs and half-celebs from finding hope in hair,here is why bald is the new sexy. One,it is a sign of social equality (the rugs or transplants are an upper-class indulgence). Two,it suggests you have real heroes. Remember Gandhi and Winston Churchill? Three,you can save money: a good hair transplant costs between Rs 2.5 and Rs 8 lakh. Four,you do not need cosmetics like Nanogen,which conceal hair loss through a spray-on fibre treatment,which adds artificial hair to your thinning rug. It is a quick-fix treatment that lasts all day,provided it doesnt rain. Five,and most important,you may be investing money and risk into whats unpredictable. A far cry from old-style weaves,which involved gluing other peoples hair to the scalp,hair transplants remove hair from the back of a head by Follicular Unit Extraction. It isolates the basic follicular unit,which can contain one,two or three hairs. These are removed one by one with a microdrill,a 1mm bore,after a local anaesthetic is injected. The alternative is a strip process which removes a block of skin containing hair,after which they are dissected under the microscope into individual follicular units. Since the scalp is injected with a saline solution to tighten the surface for surgeons to work on safely,it has to be followed by anti-inflammatory medication. Strenuous exercise has to be avoided for some time. Otherwise,you can end up looking pale and bloated for a while,as celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay will tell you. Ridiculed by a British newspaper after reportedly having a hair transplant at the swanky Alvi Armani Clinic in Toronto,Ramsay ended up looking troubled. Why not be trouble-free instead? Be sexy and bare your minds. Like Prince William. shefalee.vasudev@expressindia.com
