Brad Pitt's beard -- in the beginning. Photo credit: Dan MacMedan

The Times today reaffirmed humanity’s fascination with the ability to grown hair on one’s face: Robert Crampton, because it must have been a slow news week, penned an editorial on “this beard thing.”

Citing celebrities Brad Pitt (whose tufty chin beard brings him closer to actually becoming a billy goat or a member of ZZ Top with each creepy inch) and David Beckham (whose structured face fuzz makes him look like Wolverine), Crampton writes, “The beard is about as back as it’s been since the 19th century.” But, he wants to know, who started it?

We can’t really answer the “who”, but we can say that this kind of trend article pops up about once a fortnight. In March 2006, The New York Times opined that beards were back in a big way, citing trendsetters George Clooney, who had grown a beard for his role in Syriana, the whiskered faces appeared on New York Fashion Week runways, and Civil War era President Ulysses S. Grant. In April 2007, GQ magazine’s Glenn O’Brien on The GQ Eye blog wrote, “Beards are back in style. I had a dinner party last night, and all the men present had beards. And it was not a theme party.” On 8 January of this year, Esquire advocated growing a winter beard to be more like those hot celebrities that Crampton mentioned.

And so on and so on. Beards may be in, but wow, articles about beards are nothing new.

Of course, while Crampton worries about what’s driving the trend, The Daily Mail reported that actor Joaquin Phoenix has shaved his bushy beard. It’s unclear at this point both why this was news and what affect it could have on the worldwide beard trend.