Tall, Dark and Handsome : The Beach Boy Look Gives Way to an Ethnic Aesthetic in Southern California

FACE IT, DUDE, you of the beach blond and baby blues: Your look is tired, buddy. You’re no longer the image of Southern California cool, the surfer stuff of girls’ dreams.

The Southern California man has changed, reflecting the region’s changing demographics. Emerging as His Highness of Hip is the New West Dude: ethnically debonair, with darker hair, darker eyes, darker skin and a gym-chiseled physique that has definition, not demolition, spread over every muscular inch of his body.

Just ask any hairdresser. Most stylists don’t just cut hair; they’re also on the cutting edge of what’s hot and what’s not.

“The blond beach boys are out,” says Roberto Rangel of Today’s Look in downtown Los Angeles. “The Latin-looking, Asian-looking guys are very in. They are what Southern California is all about. The blond is not the symbol of California anymore.”

And ponytails are passe. The trend is brunet (dark brown to black) and shorter. Hair gets slicked back (with a water-soluble gel) in a style that is longer on top and buzzed in the back so that it doesn’t touch the collar. Not as severe as a boot camp cut, it works well for a trip to the boardroom or a bohemian late night at blak & bloo in Hollywood.

For a totally radical look, the abbreviated cut can be spiked or spritzed (Matrix, VAVOOM! and Sebastian hair sprays are favorites) into gravity-defying place. Or it can be worn dry and parted on the side in a ‘60s reprise.

This clean, fresh hairstyle complements the Southern California man’s olive-skinned face, which is free of facial hair, smooth and polished--thanks to bronzers and liquid foundations that create the golden-boy look without cancer-causing rays. Mustaches, beards, goatees and especially stubble made famous by Don Johnson and George Michael are outdated. Along with long sideburns, long hair and pierced lobes, whiskers are yesterday’s news.

“The Southern California man is not what the rest of the world thinks he is. He is not a WASP surfer,” says modeling mogul Nina Blanchard, who for 29 years has helped create the L.A. look for both men and women. And like others in the business, Blanchard is working to change the planet’s perception of the Southern California type because, she says, Los Angeles is a melting pot of manliness that doesn’t exclusively hang ten at Santa Monica Beach or belong to the electric guitar squad on Sunset Boulevard.

“He’s the other men out there, too,” she says of the person most likely to catch her eye during talent searches. At her agency, Blanchard already has redefined the Southern California look by adding more brunets; about 30% of its male models are blonds.

Omar Albertto, owner of Omar’s Men, a bi-coastal model-management company,also wants to squelch the surfer/lifeguard stereotype. “Let’s get away from the surfer look everyone seems to associate with men here,” he says. “The Southland has men of all races and nationalities. He’s black, he’s brown, he’s very ethnic. He’s Latin, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, Iranian, Mexican, Filipino. He’s a man of many amazing looks and styles.”

And he’s a guy with a toned and tight frame, Albertto says, adding that Southern California men, especially Angelenos, are very vain when it comes to their bodies because they tend to show off more skin than men anywhere else.

“They are concerned about the way they look. And above all, they want to be in really great, great shape.” But, Albertto says, the Southern California man doesn’t want to work out so much that he begins to look like the guys pumping iron at Muscle Beach. Patrick Swayze’s hunky frame, not Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hulky build, is more his speed.

Aida Grey, the noted Beverly Hills salon owner, says the New West Dude is also a rebel with a cosmetic cause. “He isn’t shy about dabbing on a light foundation to improve his skin color or rubbing on a colorless gloss to keep his lips soft,” she says. In fact, men of all ages, ethnicities, physiognomies and careers make up a third of her clientele.

And they aren’t afraid of getting regular mud facials, pedicures, manicures, scalp treatment, saunas or lessons in using tinted moisturizers and under-eye concealers. The majority are forking out more than $100 for five hours of pampering and a few even pay $25 to have their brows and lashes dyed, says Grey, who is devoting half the space in her next book, “The Encyclopedia of Health and Beauty,” to male grooming.

Lisa Sinoway, owner of Face to Face Skincare in Encino, agrees that the Southern California man of the ‘90s is up-front about the way he looks and not embarrassed about getting the hair on his chest and back waxed (about $40) or waxing his overgrown brows ($12).

“It’s a part of this new smoother, polished, professional look,” says Sinoway, who during the past decade has seen shy clients become bold peacocks. “It’s a look that fits in with the emotional and physical attitude of the new Southern California guy out there. Waxing, tweezing--this is not a sissy thing to do.”

Neither is getting the gray out, which brings us back to hair--a preoccupation of every man at every age, whether he has it or not.

Consider Jack Martin, a 37-year-old bar manager at Morton’s restaurant in West Hollywood where movie producers driving Jags pop in for pina coladas. Consulting with his hairdresser-image maker, Martin says he wants to be rid of the gray hair that he’s had since he was 20.

“I figure I still have a youthful appearance, but the gray makes me look older,” he says, acknowledging that although the Southern California man is changing, his obsession with youth is not. An hour after the stylist begins his transformation, presto! Martin’s hair is shorter, and the gray is gone. He appears to be a new man, slick and sexy.

So, dudes, don’t say you haven’t been warned. The surfer look has wiped out. There’s a gnarly new trend making waves in Southern California.

Model: Tim Nielsen / Nana Blanchard Agency; hair and makeup: Darrell Redleaf / Celestine / L.A.; stylist: Xavier Cabrera; jacket by Studio Tokyo