“Nice wig Janice, what’s it manufactured from?”…“Your mum’s chest hair!” This iconic one-liner (from the now-canonical 2004 film, Mean Girls) is indicative of just how far chest hair, be it your mum’s or your individual, is loaded with cultural connotation. 

In terms of body hair, a sort of ‘all or nothing’ politics abounds and chest hair is not any different. In fact, there was a time when humans were completely covered in body hair but, as our ape-adjacent ancestors migrated to warmer climes, and eventually indoors, we began to shed this coating through a technique of natural selection. Over time, any body hair that did remain became encoded in deep sociocultural associations. 

Due to chest hair’s correlation to higher levels of testosterone, these codes are inclined to be rooted in virility: namely sex and dominance. Because of this, a hairy chest has flitted between sexy and seedy depending on the last decade – big bushes were all over the place within the 70s yet by the 90s that they had all but disappeared. And now, bare chests appear to be gaining popularity again – no less than in accordance with one 2018 Mintel report which found that 46 per cent of men remove hair from their bodies, a figure up 36 per cent in 2016. 

Unnecessary to say, our relationship with chest hair is profound. And, when even probably the most recent Tarzan (by Disney starring Alexander Skarsgård) managed to get a wax, is it any wonder? So, as our chest hair continues to wax and wane, allow us to take you thru a few of the most breast-beating moments of the past few many years.

TOM SELLECK (Nineteen Eighties)

In case your mum ever told you to “eat your veg since it’ll put hairs in your chest”, that is who she was picturing. Tom Selleck was an actor who rose to fame within the 70s as a model, most notably because the Marlboro Man. 

Whether three buttons down opposite Farrah Fawcett in a Dubonnet commercial or topless as Thomas Magnum in 80s drama Magnum P.I., Selleck was the final word hairy chest poster boy. And if the Marlboro cigs didn’t knock you out, the pheromones would have.

Presumably all too aware of this, Selleck famously turned down the role of Mick Buchannon in Baywatch (taken up by other fur ball, David Hasselhoff) as he didn’t need to turn out to be a sex symbol. At this point, it was probably too little too late, but it surely is suggestive of the extent to which a hairy chest, and its proximity to masculinity, has been sexualised. You may additionally recognise him as Dr Richard Burke, Monica Geller’s older boyfriend in Friends.

MARKY MARK (Nineteen Nineties)

In 1992, small-time rapper Mark Wahlberg (Marky Mark) was picked up by Calvin Klein to feature in a series of underwear ads. The now-iconic campaigns, lensed by Herb Ritts, starred a bare-chested, pumped up Wahlberg opposite an elfin Kate Moss. 

For Calvin Klein, it was all about one aesthetic – “straight-looking, masculine men, with chiselled bodies, young Greek gods come to life.”

Klein’s newfound ideals of hairlessness and muscular definition became the catalyst for a wider bare chest movement, by which a slew of other 90s pop figures like Justin Timberlake, Take That, and after all, Peter Andre would come to copy. 

SIMON COWELL (2001-2011)

Within the ever-changing landscape of TV talent shows, one thing stays constant, Simon Cowell’s look. Alongside half-buttoned shirts, and dodgy boot-cut denim, Cowell’s bristling bosom has been a long-term fixture of Saturday night TV since he first appeared as a judge on Pop Idol in 2001 (although viewing figures for his shows have now plummeted since Little Mix’s The X Factor win in 2011).

Framed with a deep v-neck or shown off on a jet ski, Cowell parades his chest hair with pride. And within the context of this industry mogul, it could appear to conflate the patriarchal ideals of success and wealth with masculinity. 

The truth is, it’s harking back to Gaston from the 1991 Beauty and the Beast Disney film who proclaims “and each last inch of me’s covered in hair”. It was chauvinistic then and edges towards a certain toxic masculinity now.

CRISTIANO RONALDO (2010-2014) 

As we enter the 2010s, footballers start to realize major celeb status. Because of this, the career’s most fair-faced booked huge promoting campaigns – think David Beckham for Emporio Armani, Freddie Ljungberg for Calvin Klein, or Cristiano Ronaldo, whose oiled-up bare chest scored a four-year contract with Armani from 2010.

While a hairless body could provide the athlete some aerodynamic advantages, it’s these men who’re widely accredited for influencing the naughties ‘metrosexual’ –  a word now exclusively used to explain music teachers and other people who wear Ted Baker.

Due to men like Ronaldo, a waxed chest became a calling card for the masculine revolution – a latest breed of heterosexual man, who moisturised, went to the hairdressers but was definitely not gay. 

DON DRAPER (2007-2015)

For seven seasons as Don Draper, the tragic hero of hit TV series Mad Men, John Hamm bought chest hair ever closer to the proponents of the on-screen casanova. Charismatic, wealthy, and unbearably handsome – Don Draper was, in so some ways, the final word zaddy.

As he charmed his way from the boardroom to bedroom, Draper’s scruffy chest became as synonymous along with his character as bourbon or a post-coital cigarette. It was the marker of an easy sex appeal and has little doubt fuelled the rapid sexualisation of the ‘dad bod’. 

LOVE ISLAND (2015-PRESENT)

Then comes Love Island. For six nights per week, we watch male islanders sprawl across the villa like really buff Sphynx cats. And it’s turn out to be one in all the largest cultural phenomena of recent years (possibly). 

Waxed to perfection, the islanders reflect the novel acceptance of male grooming (an industry projected to succeed in $60.7 billion this year). These pumped up, boulder-built 20-somethings put forth a selected brand of masculinity, the ‘spornosexual’. 

Just as moisturised and preened because the metrosexual before him, for the sporno man it’s all about being jacked, meal plans and private bests. And obvs, no chest hair.

CATS (2019)

When you’ve seen a hairy-chested Jennifer Hudson sing “Memory”, or Judi Dench’s chest fuzz billow within the dawn of Trafalgar Square, you don’t feel quite the identical. 

Cats introduces us to ‘digital fur technology’ – a latest sort of anthropomorphic body hair, void of all social connotation and sexual allure. It does look warm though, as except for Judi Dench, no-one really wears a coat.

ART SCHOOL AW20 (2020)

As a part of its AW20 collection, Art School (London’s non-binary luxury fashion label), sent a model down the runway with their chest hair slicked around to form the brand’s name.

It’s a cursed image at first, but it surely triggers that familiar sense of unease which the brand’s shows have come to represent – just like the models who walked the viral SS20 show at a feverish, unhinged pace. 

By the hands of this queer label, to play with chest hair is to divest its associations to cis-hyper-masculinity. It’s a subversive move when a lot of queer identity politics is linked to body hair (think fuzzy ‘bears’ or smooth ‘twinks’). And in doing so, Art School follows within the footsteps of other non-binary figures, like Jonathon Van Ness or Sam Smith, who’ve embraced their chest hair as an element of a fluid identity.