Follow the Hair

I suppose it is silly to expect reliable business advice from a novel but this sounds like it has the ring of truth about it:

"Wigs don't last long. Bet you don't know; toupees are good for two, maybe three years max. The better made hey are, the faster they get used up. They're the ultimate consumer product. It's 'cause they fit so tightly against the scalp: the hair underneath gets thinner than ever. Once that happens, you have to buy a new one to get that perfect fit again. And think about it: What if you were using a toupee and it was no good after two years--wht would go through your mind? Would you think, OK, my wig's worn out. Can't wear it any more. But it'll cost too much to buy a new one, so tomorrow I'll start going to work without one? Is that what you'd think?"

I shook my head. "Probably not," I said.

"Of course not. Once a guy starts using a wig, he has to keep using one. It's like, his fate. That's why wig makers make such huge profits. I hate to say it, but they're like drug dealers. Once they get their hooks into a guy, he's a customer for life. Have you ever herd of a bald guy suddenly growing a head of hair? I never have. A wig's got to cost half a million yen at least, maybe a million for a tough one. And you need a new one every two years! Wow! Even a car lasts longer than that--four or five years. And then you can trade it in!"

"I see what you mean," I said.

"Plus, the wig makers run their own hairstyling salons. They was these wigs and cut the customers' real hair. I mean, think about it: you can't just plunk yourself down in an ordinary barber's chair, rip off your wig, and say, 'I'd like a trim,' can you? The income from these places alone is tremendous."

"You know all kinds of things," I said, with genuine admiration

--Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle 110
(Jay Rubin tran. 1997)

Comment: I wonder how, if at all, this picture is changed by the emergence of the hair transplant. Transplants are pretty obvious, IMO--or at least the ones that are obvious, are obvious. Yet they are neat and consistent. Sort of a piece of grooming. I know one guy: I knew him in his 20s with a full head of hair, and then in his 30s, bald as Fabius Africanus. Now in his 50s, he's perhaps 15 years into his transplant and it looks perfectly respectable.