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If you’re balding, a trip to Turkey isn’t the only solution available to you. A new generation of men are openly embracing “hair systems”—a.k.a. toupees—with surprisinging results. —Yang-Yi Goh, style editor |
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Why the Toupee Is Making a Comeback With Millennial Men |
“Just got a haircut,” Tyler Williams says. He’s looking straight into the camera, flexing his fresh fade. “It’s time to run some errands and show this thing off. Cause as the old saying goes: if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear it, then how are the hoes supposed to know?’”
It’s the kind of cocky-dumb TikTok video that keeps the Nashville content creator’s 800,000-plus followers coming back. But there’s a kicker: the haircut isn’t entirely his. At least not in the way you might think. Williams is wearing a hair system—a modern-day toupee that blends so seamlessly into his scalp and tapered sides that most viewers would never guess.
“The people that know, know, and the people who don't, can't tell. So they think I'm talking about a regular-ass haircut,” Williams tells GQ. In reality, the 33-year-old is bald up top. When it’s time for a “cut,” his hairstylist tapes a new system to his bare dome and fades the grown-out sides so cleanly, you'd swear it was all homegrown. “I view this as a normal solution to hair loss,” Williams says. “I hate that there's any stigma around it.”
Williams quietly embraced the faux flow during the pandemic, but when a salty ex started airing his secret, he beat her to the punch with a confession video that blew up online. “It was received so positively across the internet—like yeah, everyone deserves to feel good about themselves,” he says, noting a growing post-pandemic craving for “authenticity and realness” on social media. “It's not my fault that I went bald. I'm not required to just accept it and shave my head. I can do something about it, and that's what I chose to do.”
He’s hardly alone. On TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, the toupee—once your weird uncle’s not-so-secret shame—appears to be having a moment. Barbers are sharing jaw-slackening before-and-afters and formerly self-conscious dudes are flaunting their transformations like just-copped Jordans.
Those in the industry say the social media momentum is doing more than just generating views—it’s translating into real-world demand, with barbers in major cities reporting a sharp uptick in millennials and Gen Zers booking appointments to get fitted for tailor-made tresses of their own.
Click here for the full story and before-and-after pics.
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