The Null Device
2014/2/26
The latest thing in Williamsburg, the ground zero of the modern Hipster subculture and its gentrification, is facial hair transplants, for men who lack the ability to grow a luxuriant urban-woodsman beard otherwise:
"I get a lot of detail-oriented people — artists, architects," the doctor said, noting that beard-centric neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bushwick and Park Slope have each delivered four to five clients to her practice in the past year.
In addition to beardless hipsters, doctors said their clients include men who have struggled since adolescence to grow a beard, those undergoing a gender transition from female to male, men with with facial scarring and Hasidic Jews who hope to achieve denser payot, or sidelocks. A greater awareness of facial hair transplants has also fueled the popularity of the procedure, doctors said.The procedure involves transplanting follicles from the scalp to the face and costs $3000 to fill in a section or $7000 for a full beard; though given that Hipster is not a subculture for the unmoneyed, that should be no object. Perhaps, as Hipster gentrifies further, the next phase will be facial hair in naturally improbable places, as an unfalsifiable peacock-tail-like demonstration of both financial means and subcultural commitment