The Gareth Southgate effect! Clinic offering £4,000 beard and sideburn transplants claims England manager has sparked a 25% uptick in sales
Waistcoat sales soared during the last World Cup, all thanks to Gareth Southgate’s influence.
Now England’s manager has supposedly sent demand for something else through the roof — beard and sideburn transplants.
One Manchester clinic offering the £4,000 procedure claims to have seen a 25 per cent rise in men wanting facial hair over the last year.
Patients have claimed the 52-year-old ex-Premier League player is their ‘inspiration’.
Dr Asim Shahmalak, founder of the clinic, told MailOnline his clients hope to achieve the same look that gives Gareth ‘natural authority and marks him out as a leader’.
Gareth Southgate has been credited with sending demand for beard and sideburn transplants through the roof as men aim to copy his facial hair style during the ongoing tournament
Dr Shahmalak said one recent sideburn transplant recipient is a ‘big football fan and said Southgate was someone he admitted and an inspiration’. The 48-year-old farmer (pictured) had 200 grafts – around 500 individual hairs – transplanted into each of his sideburns
Dr Asim Shahmalak, founder of the clinic, told MailOnline that his clients hope to achieve the same look that gives Southgate ‘natural authority and marks him out as a leader’
The clinic said it has performed 250 beard or sideburn transplants so far this year.
This is compared to 201 by the same point in 2021.
And there has been a ‘strong surge’ in the last two months, with more than 70 performed in recent weeks alone – ‘sparked in part by the World Cup and Gareth Southgate’, according to the clinic.
Around half of men complain that they have bald patches in their beard or sideburns, according to its poll of 1,000 people.
The problem is usually genetic but an imbalanced diet, stress and hormone imbalances can also be to blame.
The facial hair transplant first involves removing hair-bearing skin from other parts of the body.
Under a stereoscope, the tissue is dissected into follicular unit grafts, each of which contain one to four hairs.
The transplant, which takes four to six hours to complete, is carried out under local anaesthetic, which means patients are aware during the procedure but cannot feel pain.
The grafts are placed into the patchy area of the face. They grow in 10 to 16 weeks after the procedure.
Dr Shahmalak said one recent sideburn transplant recipient is a ‘big football fan and said Southgate was someone he admitted and an inspiration’.
The 48-year-old farmer had 200 grafts – around 500 individual hairs – transplanted into each of his sideburns.
Dr Shahmalak said: ‘Gareth Southgate is a role model to millions of men. They like the way he talks and the like the way he looks.
‘At the last World Cup, we saw a surge in the sales of waistcoats which he wore on the touchline without a jacket during games.
‘At this World Cup, it is his beard that men are latching on to. Patients say that his beard gives him natural authority and marks him out as a leader.
‘They feel he looks more handsome with a beard than clean shaven. Many patients have gaps in their beards and they want the fuller beard that Southgate has.’
The 52-year-old’s style became a huge talking point among England fans during the last World Cup tournament.
Marks & Spencer reported a 35 per cent increase in waistcoat sales as a result of him wearing the item of clothing.
He has shaken things up this tournament, however. He has been seen sporting a thin wool jumper during matches, rather than his famous waistcoats.
Southgate will next be seen pitch-side at 7pm on Saturday night, when England taken on France in the World Cup quarter final.
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