If you pay attention to the fashion and beauty space, then you’ll know there’s been a major switchup in the It Boy lineup vis-à-vis luxury brand campaigns.There’s Jacob Elordi for Bleu de Chanel. Omar Apollo for Coach. Pedro Pascal for Chanel. Damson Idris for Prada. And then on the red carpet, it’s been a steady parade of familiar faces—the aforementioned It Boys joined by Paul Mescal, Jonathan Bailey, Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Miles Teller—among many others. And one thing they’ve all had in common? A slutty little mustache. Gone are the hipster lumberjack beards of the 2010s. In their place is this lighter, cheekier facial hair trend that’s becoming the standard bearer for soft boys everywhere.
The It Boys Have Spoken. Beards Are Out—Slutty Little Mustaches Are In
It’s giving Old Hollywood with a 21st-century twist
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Published May 19, 2026
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If this trend is calling to mind Bailey’s spectacular 2025 press run for Jurassic World: Rebirth, then you’re on the right track. His character, the bespectacled Dr. Henry Loomis, took over the internet. The lithe frames were, as Mashable put it, whimsical. Charming. Boyishly so. And the slutty little mustache is hot on its heels. It feels mature without being serious, implying just a hint of mischief. It’s not Tom Selleck’s bushy upper lip. Rather, it’s Clark Gable and his stunning turn as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind—a bad boy still fully in control. And more than its evocations of classic Hollywood, there are practical pluses, too. Beards tend to obscure at least half of a man’s face. The slutty little mustache offers a much better view and clearer idea of what you’re getting into.
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Gone are the days of the hipster beard, whose poster children were the likes of Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers, Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and practically every Williamsburg dweller when the neighborhood was on the come-up 15 years ago. These guys were craft beer enthusiasts, living in raw denim and flannel and spraying smoky cedar cologne. Rugged—but still cultured. This marked a shift away from the emo aesthetic that preceded it, with long hair and bangs traded for shorter cuts and facial hair.
Now, the pendulum is swinging back the other way. While we’re not seeing full-on emo, the soft boy very much echoes the ethos of being deep in your feelings. Chalamet kick-started the trend when he burst onto the scene with a heart-tugging performance in Call Me By Your Name. Since then, the new It Boys have followed suit, offering a softer portrait of masculinity that eschews the machismo for something androgynous and perhaps even slightly feminine—while still hinting at that swoonworthy Old Hollywood leading-man potential.
