high life is starting trends all over the place...

AYBE it's fitting, maybe it's paradoxical, maybe it's that murky mix of the two popularly called ironic. But in a day when men's grooming has hit heights of polish not seen since the roaring 20's, when Rudolph Valentino ruled the screen and Col. Jacob Schick patented the electric razor, the beard, in all its scraggly splendor, has come back to town.

On the downtown streets of New York, in the hipster hangouts of Los Angeles and on college campuses in between, the young and style-conscious are affecting a look that until recently could not claim to be either. In the few years since Luke Wilson sported a full beard as an anachronistic oddball in "The Royal Tenenbaums," it has shaken off its fusty image as the badge of the out-of-date guy who refuses to make concessions to fashion.