Daniel Craig stands apart, and not just because his Bond is more rugged, and more troubled, and seems to be haunted by the fact he's essentially a war criminal. He has a modicum of a conscience, is what we're saying. Which is great news! But he also has very different hair. For Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton were all loosely knotted by their foppish lick of dark hair: perpetually swept back and tidy, even in the face of exploding Russian missile silos, and with the sort of length strongly endorsed in a boarding school's uniform manifesto.
Craig is different. A step beyond the usual tropes, he is tall, and handsome, and not dark. His hair is shorter, and more ruffled, and decidedly more lifelike given his daily workload. Better yet, it's far easier to get – and keep – than the GoldenEye lids of yore.
"This sort of cut is the perfect way to keep finer locks sharp and on point," says Derek Shortall, barber at Ruffians' Covent Garden store. "And it's a happy medium between classic secret agent, and military tight."
That means asking for the clippers. Heavily-guarded clippers, mind. "Craig's haircut is created longer guards kept firmly on the end so as to keep it a little longer. Ask your barber to give you a soft clipper taper: a number four down to a two and a half should do it," says Shortall. "A precision cut square short layer will keep the top nicely honed and toned."
It'll be much easier to style too, and require far less than the effort required from Brosnan's ostensibly effortless low tide quiff. "After shampooing, go for two to three spritzes of sea salt spray, and dry the hair flat from back to front," says Shortall. "Once you’ve got the crown and hair hugging nice and flat, reverse the drier and flip that fringe in a mini quiff. Then, finish with a dab of styling paste and follow the same pattern, working it from the crown to the front, and then push that fringe back with an accent left or right as you see fit."
James Bond's hair is decidedly un-James Bond. Which is a boon, since the majority of us are not James Bond, either. Not until our next trip to the barber, anyway.
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