2016 Brian Killian

2016 Paul Archuleta

We love turtleneck sweaters, and we love beards, and we especially love both as the summer ends and fall weather (and clothes) starts rolling in. But yesterday, two famous (and famously stylish) men—Zayn Malik and Usher—alerted us to a problem that arises when one combines the two things.

Here's the thing: If you have a dark beard and then you wear a dark turtleneck, like these two did (we don't have time to get into the weird embellished man-necklace attached to Usher's outfit), your chin can quickly disappear. As in, the structure of your face gets lost in a visual black hole. As you can see in both pictures, these guys just created a vortex of shadow that eats their chins and makes otherwise stylish looks a sudden question as to where their faces end and the knitwear begins. That's not what we're going for.

This doesn't mean that you can't ever wear a turtleneck if you have a beard; it just means you need to pick something that has a contrasting color so there are two distinct entities at the jaw-neck border, not a strange melding of the two. And if you need any suggestions, Tom Ford just showed a terrific, turtleneck-heavy collection that features lots of colors that just so happen to be available to buy right now.

Max Berlinger is a freelance writer who's based in Brooklyn, NY. He has written for the New York Times, GQ, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Departures, Robb Report, Town & Country, and many other publications. He's interested in the way fashion and culture overlap. He's probably killing time on Twitter right... Read moreXInstagramRelated Stories for GQZayn MalikTurtlenecksBeards