When L.A.-based content creator Alex Narvaez recently became a dad, he didn’t just trade bar crawls for diaper runs. He also traded in his haircut.
For years, Narvaez rocked a bleached forward crop, a style he says made him look “more playful, more youthful, more approachable” in front of the camera. But with fatherhood and 40 on the horizon, he felt the pull of something sharper. So he made a follicular U-turn, ditching the crop for a clean, combed-back fade: less wide-eyed, more powerful.
“You think slicked-back hair, you think someone in a suit who’s a CEO,” he says. “I feel like I’ve reached a new level of maturity and I wanted to embrace that in my aesthetic.”
The decision taps into a classic grooming dichotomy guys have been circling forever: Should you brush your hair forward or back? Like Tupac vs. Biggie, standing desk vs. beanbag chair, or skinny jeans vs. pants so wide they could hide a family of raccoons, the direction of your hair can feel like a referendum on who you are—or at least who you want to be.
Celebrity hair stylist Clayton Hawkins frames the choice as a tug-of-war between two cultural auras. “To me, slicked back is pure ’80s Wall Street excess. Forward is 2000s MySpace,” he says. “We’ve been ping-ponging between those vibes for decades.”
Read more about the dueling hairstyles, and what each style choice says about you, here.
