Let's face it; some men are naturally gorgeous. They are mouth-watering, perhaps even scrumptious; whether they have just been pulled out of a wrecked car (Connery), pulled through a hedge backwards (Depp) or just simply pulled with Elizabeth Debicki (Hiddleston).
A moment of rare prescience which we all failed to appreciate in 1964;
Goldfinger apologises to Bond for the caddying shortcomings of his henchman Oddjob -
"Golf is not yet the national game of Korea, eh ?"
Johnny Depp, timeless as Edward Scissorhands in 1990
2017's The Night Manager:
Debicki and Hiddleston: "Phwoor" and "Phwoorer"
Then at the other end of the spectrum are the guys with "the perfect face for radio". Or as a friend put it rather less charitably; "You've all the looks of a tennis ball that's been chewed by yer mutt for the best part of 30 years". Always looking for the silver lining, I interpreted this as his warmest wish that my four-pawed buddy would achieve such privileged longevity.
It has to be said there are very few of us 'tennis balls' in Korea and most of us are indeed foreigners. South Korean men and women are for the most part strikingly good looking, with each generation successively increasing the average height of the population. During the course of a normal business day in Seoul it is not unusual to meet Korean men and women-in-heels who approach 6ft in height, sporting thick, dark hair, flawless skin and very well-toned, slender, athletic physiques. Young South Koreans at least have broken out of the mould of the short, stooped, Asian shopkeeper.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17774210
Or 6" according to Christopher Hitchens
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/02/kim-jong-il-s-regime-is-even-weirder-and-more-despicable-than-you-thought.html
Back to John McCain's 3"
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/short-north-koreans-and-americans/
Whichever is correct, the pursuit of movie-star looks and extended youth are powerfully fueling the economy and the media. In 2018 the Korean beauty market was estimated to be worth US$13bn, a little less than the opening cost of 2 new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Sadly there are no prizes for guessing which of these will rapidly outpace the other, much to the chagrin of the British electricity consumer.
http://www.mintel.com/press-centre/beauty-and-personal-care/a-bright-future-south-korea-ranks-among-the-top-10-beauty-markets-globally
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/11/health/korean-makeup-beauty-health-benefits/index.html
Of course beauty products are no longer aimed exclusively at the female consumer. Anything a woman can do, a man can do better, vanity not excluded. Korean men are now increasingly the target of new product launches; for example 'Boy de Chanel' which selected South Korea for its initial worldwide release.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiffanyleigh/2018/08/27/chanel-debuts-boy-de-chanel-male-makeup-collection/#6c9a4cfee3c5
In this simple move Chanel confers to the Korean men's cosmetic market the same importance as the movie industry would if it held the worldwide premier of the next Bond movie in Seoul. And not surprisingly the soundbites are just as corny as any quip by Roger Moore's 007;
"For Chanel,
beauty is not a matter of gender;
it is a matter of style.
This new range allows men in their beauty routines to
have the tools necessary to feel better about themselves.
Moreover, men should be free to use makeup products
to correct their appearance,
without calling into question their masculinity."
So all praise to Chanel for delivering unto us the tools we need to hide the zit under our chin to give us the confidence to travel under the glaring, unforgiving lighting of public transport.
With military service being compulsory in South Korea it is reassuring to know the cosmetics industry can still support with products such as;
'Dandy Guy 4-Colour Camo Cream'
which is not only 'non-sensitive' but also 'without harsh chemicals'.
"Men have every right to protect their skin" - while they are presumably protecting their country.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/korean-men-makeup-cosmetics-mainstream-1.4552761
It is important to note that the current reinvention of Korean masculinity is driven largely by female preference rather than male re-positioning and is not in any way linked to an expression of sexuality. K-Pop, TV and film have become launchpads for a softer, androgynous Korean male image which departs from previous rugged stereotypes.
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-luxury/article/2103854/cutting-edge-beauty-male-plastic-surgery-south-korea
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Yesterday's boyfriend material: ByungHun Lee as the ultimate assassin ChoBai Han.Rugged machismo with the necessary firepower to (almost) dispatch Bruce Willis and John Malkovich in 2013's Red 2: "The Best Never Rest" |
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| World famous BTS; with the necessary eyebrows to make your knees tremble. Guys that nice girls dream of bringing home to meet the parents.Helping to launch a UNICEF youth campaign at the United Nations on 24 Sept; “No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin colour, your gender identity, just speak yourself,” |
Hair today, gone tomorrow
It has been known for more than a decade that metabolised products from recreational drugs can be monitored in London's Thames during the week to back-calculate the number of doses of cocaine and ecstasy used in the capital during the previous weekend.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/european-eels-on-cocaine-polluted-rivers-science-environment-animals/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1502321/River-of-cocaine.html
A similar exercise in Korea would instead show an alarming spike in black hair dye products flushed into the waterways on the last weekend of every month. As each month progresses one can clearly see small, distinguished flecks of grey, silver and white quickly sprouting in all the usual places on one's colleagues; the side burns, around the hair parting, the top of the neck, etc. These are natural signs of experience, wisdom and maturity. However suddenly, on the first Monday of the month, all will vanish completely as colleagues report for work looking 20 years younger than they looked the previous Friday. In some cases they look barely a day older than their own kids in the college graduation photos proudly displayed on their desks. Apart from the appearance of eternal youth, this is partly a response to the rapid increase of 'twilight divorces' and consequently 'second careers'.
In the 12 years to 2013 divorce rates fell by 25% in Korea but among those married for more than 20 years rates soared 31%, now accounting for one quarter of all divorces. The trigger is typically when the husband reaches retirement age or is retired early. This is when wives have the sudden epiphany that their husband's long working hours were in fact the best feature of their marriage and that to be together all day every day will be insufferable. With recent changes in the law and favourable judgements setting legal precedents wives are now promptly filing for divorce and taking half of everything with them.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-divorce/its-never-too-late-twilight-divorce-in-south-korea-at-record-idUSKCN0T12KV20151112
http://koreabizwire.com/twilight-divorces-and-national-pension-splits-both-on-the-rise/114140
In such a climate it now becomes imperative for each husband to preserve his dashing good looks to minimise the risk of being retired early and indeed, should the worst occur, to trade on his experience to start a 'second career' as a senior consultant in a smaller company, just when you think it's all over.
http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=252860
Anything but the quiet life.
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