Lately there's been an anti-brow trend in fashion. When a person is born with light or no eyebrows it seems completely visually sweet and normal and I have never thought "That person needs to get themselves a prosthetic brow!". However, many less salubrious thoughts come to mind when I see people otherwise brow-endowed either white them out or shave them. SHAVE THEM?!! For fashion shoots I don't believe anyone is asked to shave their brows. Though why I shouldn't imagine such a thing is a mystery since I'm pretty sure it's expected that all models have a brazilian wax or a porn-star special*. (This is obviously the main reason I never became a supermodel.)
This trend makes me think of chemotherapy. It makes me think of aliens. The best thing it makes me think of is David Bowie in his least sexy sartorial moment in time when he recorded Aladdin Sane and had himself photographed with Twiggy. Who wouldn't?
I find myself feeling that there is some religious cult at work here.
It's almost as though some designers have come to realize that the eyebrow is nothing more than a cumbersome slug on the face, or that it embodies some symbol of imposed chastity and one can be much more liberated if one just REMOVES the offending feature completely!
Look carefully at those brow-less women, don't they seem like they might be capable of leading Jesus himself down a corrupt path where there is nothing going but carnal ruptures in chintzy thin curtained motel rooms on the off-off Vegas strip where every room is gilded with ceiling mirrors and vibrating mattresses and everything is spent by the hour and billed to the man on top?
Yes, that is me. Thanksgiving 1996. It's a shame you can't see it in this picture but I managed to match my hair to my band jacket EXACTLY (with permanent dye). It's tempting to blame Boy George for this brow perfidy, but if anyone in particular can be blamed I'm afraid the honors go completely to David Bowie. Not even David doing Aladdin but David doing "The Man Who Fell To Earth" which I can't watch now or I kind of want to kill myself just a little. Back then I watched it at least 13 times in one year**. The first time I saw it I saw it in the theater. I think that's fairly damning in itself.
Now look, shaving your eyebrows is a big commitment and quite disturbing. You can see I speak from regrettable experience.
I say it's regrettable because I know it's what you need to hear so you can sleep again. Truth is, I still enjoy pictures of myself with the brashly painted BLACK AS SIN brow on my pale as the north pole face.
What I'm happy no one can see, that there's no photographic proof of is what I looked like in the morning, sans theatrics. An unnaturally naked brow is not a pretty sight. I'm pretty sure an unnaturally naked brow is a gateway facial feature to sin.
Yes, it's all about sin. No matter how I may twist and turn the whole naked brow trend it seems fraught with bad behavior and at least two of the seven deadly sins: sex and rock-n-roll.
And purposeful hideosity.
*The 100% naked 12 year old special.
**That was impressive back when I didn't have my own vcr collection and had yet to let my OCD loose and free. I was still trying to control myself at least a little bit. If I hadn't been I would have watched it exactly 543 times in one year.
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