The Comb-Over

Once upon a time, the comb-over was the respectable choice. In the 60s and 70s you weren’t mocked for draping your remaining strands across the battlefield – you were praised for making the effort. A dab of Brylcreem, a steady hand, and you could face the world pretending nothing was happening up top. It was, in its way, a uniform of middle-class denial.

But fashion is pitiless. By the 80s, comedians had turned the comb-over into visual shorthand for tragic self-delusion. Then along came the wrecking crew. Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas hinted that bald could be bold. Michael Jordan proved it by shaving his head and winning everything in sight. Patrick Stewart added gravitas on the bridge of the Enterprise. Bruce Willis and Jason Statham made bald the shorthand for tough. Against that line-up, the comb-over looked like a damp tissue clinging to a breeze block.

And just when it should have been laid to rest with safari suits and flares, Donald Trump resurrected it – a vast, lacquered monument to denial, perched on his scalp like spun sugar on a toffee apple. He had the money for transplants, the option to shave, even the decency to wear a wig – but no, he doubled down on the comb-over as if it were a moral crusade. That’s when the style moved from tragic to toxic. Once your haircut becomes a global punchline tied to the world’s most orange narcissist, you’ve passed the point of no return.

Which brings us to Putin. You’d think he’d have embraced the razor years ago – the shaved head is pure power theatre, the sort of look that says “I’ve got nuclear missiles and I don’t care who knows it.” Instead, he clings to that cropped fringe, trimmed into a KGB austerity cut that pretends at permanence. Perhaps he knows that once he goes smooth, he stops being timeless and starts being compared to Vin Diesel memes. A dictator can’t survive the Fast & Furious franchise.

So the verdict is clear. The comb-over isn’t coming back. Not after Jordan, not after Willis, and certainly not after Trump embalmed it in hairspray. As for Putin, he can keep his cropped relic. The rest of the world has moved on – the razor reigns, and the comb-over rests in peace, buried under ridicule and lacquer, never to rise again.