The Venice International Film Festival is a demanding mistress. And so when Patrick Dempsey and Adam Driver hit the Ferrari campaign trail at one of Europe's most gilded movie summits, they have to lay it on thick. You need to be in black tie to triple air kiss the nearest actor who might be your next co-star. You need to smile and wave like a navy propaganda cartoon from your Wes Anderson water taxi. You need to have really, really good hair.
Both actors found their go-to lid long ago. And they've stuck to it. Ever since Driver trademarked the Hot Jacked Weirdo in his breakout Girls role, the 39-year-old has gone for a classic mid-length pushback. It's Mills & Boone hair for the craft beer Brooklyn gen. Better yet, it's a salve to the two-party grooming system of mullet lites and the short back and sides. You can go long and shaggy, and still skew classic. Which is very Venice International Film Festival. Driver is just one in a long line of very serious actors that go for the mid-length: Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Timothée Chalamet et al. Good company! It's also quite Disney prince, which is a tried-and-tested way to get the girl. Or the guy. Or both.
But look to Dempsey, and it gets more classic still. Where Driver goes ‘90s Hollywood, his co-star goes meticulous Golden Age Hollywood: a hi-rise quiff that Dempsey’s had forever. Because it works. This sort of cut is easily melded together using a matte pomade, and some sea salt spray if you want things to hold. Plus, it works even better now Dempsey is on the approach to 60: a thick silvery quiff is something all men dream of (and yet so very rarely obtain, as time and space causes hair to thin). This is textbook sick hair, in a sick haircut, made even better by the onset of grey. Getting old looks good.
Like menswear's shift to the left-field, grooming has also undergone a wavyfication. Which is a good thing! Hip-hop is grabbing hold of schoolgirl hairclips. It's not unusual to see a mid-20s guy with a buzzcut in a bright shade of radioactive green. But for many of us, classic still works. Maybe the unspoken rules of the Venice Film Festival are onto something.
