Regular haircut

A regular haircut, in Western fashion, is a men's and boys' hairstyle that has hair long enough to comb on top, a defined or deconstructed side part, and a short, semi-short, medium, long, or extra long back and sides. The style is also known by other names including taper cut, regular taper cut, side-part and standard haircut; as well as short back and sides, business-man cut and professional cut, subject to varying national, regional, and local interpretations of the specific taper for the back and sides. The short back and sides dates back to the Roman empire, as the regulation haircut for legionaries. Besides preventing the spread of lice, short hair and a clean shaven face prevented the enemy from grabbing a soldier by the beard. By the first century AD, Roman hairstyles were imitated by non-Roman subjects who admired the civilisation that Rome brought. Examples include the Gallo-Romans and Romanized Jews like Saint Paul seeking to distinguish themselves from traditionalists for whom hair cutting was forbidden. The regular haircut, worn with a long beard, made a comeback during the Renaissance due to European men's newfound fascination with rediscovered classical Greco-Roman artefacts. It was revived for a second time during the Regency era of c.1810-1830 as dandies abandoned the impractical and expensive powdered wigs in response to William Pitt the Younger's hair powder tax. During the Gay Nineties, the regular haircut gradually replaced the longer hair and muttonchop sideburns fashionable since the 1840s until, by 1910, it had become the norm for professional men. An extreme version known as the undercut was regulation for British and German soldiers during World War I and World War II. During the post-World War II period, the business-man haircut, in the form of a combover, became the standard dress code for men's hair in white-collar workplace settings throughout the Western world until the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 2010s fashion, the short back and sides continued to be worn by many professional men, while the related undercut was appropriated by the hipster subculture.