.jpg)
This article is taken from our weekly style and grooming newsletter, HOT WASH, from GQ's Mahalia Chang and the GQ crew. Sign up here to luxuriate in new releases, deep thoughts and boiling takes.
There used to be a couple of absolute certainties I could hang my hat on. One, if I turned on a Man City game, Erling Haaland would be booting a ball clean through some poor player’s skull, and his looped half-up, half-down ponytail would be at the scene of the crime. Two, if I saw a photo of Connor Storrie, I would be seized with some rabid gender envy, caused mostly by his head of cherubic curls.
Then, something happened over the weekend. Haaland took to Instagram with a series of unhinged posts (his speciality!) showing his long blond hair being shorn off. Someone who doesn’t Get It commented, “An angel lost his wings.” Someone who does wrote, “Very, very, very nice.”
And because buzzcuts fall in pairs, a picture was also posted to X of Connor Storrie, his bouncy, curly mullet gone. (That picture was taken by a fan of him completely unawares, having lunch, so we won’t publish it, because that’s weird!) Speculation puts him in the middle of filming Heated Rivalry season two, so there’s potentially buzz-adjacent plots unfolding.
Just like the recent eclipse, the newly bald heads of two big stars have overlapped in the sky, and everyone is turning to look. (Only this time, no one’s going partially blind! We hope!) But a buzz has always been the cool guy’s way to shake things up. My mate Charlie Calver, who heads up content down under for GQ Australia, has long called his yearly summer buzz the big “refresh”. He naturally has floppy Hugh Grant hair, so whenever he used to stroll into the office just as the days were hotting up, skull on show, it felt like the turning of the season. “When we travel, move houses or even just switch up our wardrobe, we get addicted,” wrote Charlie about his buzzcut for GQ. “We love the feeling of newness. And while it’s not a career change or huge move, shaving your head creates a certain amount of revolution.”
Robin Key, who is British GQ’s visuals director and whose crew cut is staring at me over the top of his computer, has had his short hair for three years. “I like that it's completely effortless; I can just get out of bed and it's good to go,” he says of it. “When it gets a little longer, sometimes I use a little product in it, but that’s as complicated as it gets. I'd definitely recommend if you want a sharp, fuss-free look.”
The buzzcut has been a fixture for many famous guys, from all different walks of celebrity and vibes: Michael B Jordan, Timothée Chalamet, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Robert Pattinson. There’s always been something rugged and carefree about it, something that says “I don’t care” and “I don’t ride a motorcycle but I could if I wanted to” and also “What the fuck is an e-reader?”
Of course, there are little asterisked caveats to any haircut. I don’t know what your skull looks like or how it’s shaped – that is between you, God and your poor mother. I also don’t know how often you’re willing to go to the barber, or how comfy you are with handheld clippers. If the answer to that last one is zero, then we would suggest exiting out of this newsletter and not taking any razor blades to your head, where your precious blood is. But if you can stand a little maintenance – two to four weeks, by the way – then a buzz is undeniable as an option. Sharp and low-effort. Cool for hot weather. Fuss-free for cold months. And perfect for both football fields and fictional hockey rinks (and bedrooms with hockey players in them, waheyyy!).
Thinking about going for it? First, think of your hair colour, says Benny Martin of barber’s Supply91. “Ask your barber to look at your hair colour, density and texture in order to determine the clipper length to use on the top,” he told GQ. “Lighter-coloured, low-density or smooth-textured hair normally requires a longer length (number four to number eight guard). Dark, dense or coarse hair requires a shorter length (number one to number three guard).”
Then, whether you post the whole thing to your Instagram grid, Haaland-style, or prefer to be papped mid-lunch by your fans like Storrie, the end result is the same. You look handsome and your skull gets the airtime it deserves. Win win.