There’s more to politics than flash outfits and slick hair cuts, but the Prime Minister’s wayward style doesn’t exactly scream, ‘I’ve got this’.
How do you prepare for crunch time Brexit discussions with the President of the European Commission, the outcome of which will irrevocably affect our country’s future?
For Boris Johnson, the solution was simple, by debuting a hairstyle so mind boggling bad that discussion of its abject awfulness managed to obscure the finer aspects of exactly what was agreed over that seafood dinner with Ursula von der Leyden – extremely shrewd.
2020 has been a bad hair year for the best of us, with prolonged shop closures prompting many to attempt at home cuts and ill-advised dye jobs, but Boris Johnson’s latest attempt to tackle his bleach blonde mane should provide a cautionary tale for the scissor happy among us.
We’re going to be sympathetic here and assume that this cut was a DIY job involving kitchen implements because surely no professional could have created such a thing in good faith, or was Carrie Symonds the offender, baby Wilfred, or even maybe Dilyn the dog?
The offending cut is so puzzling it virtually defies description.
The typical Johnsonian through a hedge backwards texture is present and correct, but it’s only when approached from the side that it becomes apparent just what horrors we’re dealing with.
The short, thick mono layer calls to mind a thatched roof, or Robin Hood’s sidekick Friar Tuck, both the best of British icons in their way, I guess.
Hairdresser Michael Van Clarke, founder of the eponymous Marylebone salon, rather charitably explains that the Prime Minister’s gone some way in having his hair cut shorter and a little neater on the nape.
However, his current style lacks the subtle layering around the ears, which is why it has a hard edge and is evocative of a short pudding basin effect of the 1970s.
We can only surmise that Boris Johnson had an image of Mackenzie Crook as The Office’s dwelling weirdo Gareth Keenan on his Pinterest mood board – Mackenzie Crook, appropriately, will represent flaxen haired scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, another possible reference point for the Prime Minister.
The difference between Boris Johnson and his well groomed, sharply decked European peers couldn’t be starker in a photo released as the last ditch debates kicked off in Brussels.
The Prime Minister could have utilized the press call as a bit of ad hoc promotion for the marvels of Savile Row tailoring. Instead, with his ill-fitting, comically proportioned suit, he seemed to have raided the wardrobe of cast-offs and an am dram production of Bugsy Malone.
There’s more to politics than flash outfits and fashionable hair cuts, but this eccentric look doesn’t exactly impregnate you with confidence, does it?
Van Clarke said that he doesn’t want to appear to make too much effort and the nonchalant, ruffled, unpredictable nature of the style may be sort of reverse power dressing – a wee bit like Dominic Cummings at No 10 in t shirts.
Perhaps worst of all, though, was the moment, caught for posterity on camera, when Boris Johnson took his hands from his pockets, where they’d previously been placed with all the statesmanlike ease of a naughty school boy braced for a telling off to deliberately add a little more finger in socket zhuzh to his already chaotic do.
It was a telling reminder that Boris Johnson’s image making strategy isn’t as chaotic as it might seem at first glance.
He loves to portray the joker in an attempt to persuade the electorate that he’s not like other politicians, he’s really an amusing japester.
In fact, turning up to historic negotiations with a historically crap hairdo might just be a back handed power tactic.
But his bedraggled appearance makes him look somewhat vulnerable and a bit of a posh fellow with a sense of humour, hence why he seems to appeal across the electorate, although his mane has worn a little thin now and in time not many people will think he’s a lovable clown, but more of an incompetent buffoon – even Jeremy Corbyn tidied himself up eventually and Boris Johnson should do the same.
