David Lynch is a creature of habit. The Twin Peaks director once went to the same diner for a chocolate milkshake every day for seven years, restarted his daily weather report during lockdown (along with a mysterious daily lottery), and wears the exact same outfit in every video: a black collared shirt, styled with an immaculate quiff. 

Lynch fans will know that his unchanging style isn’t anything new. Compare a video from 2021 with pictures of the director on the set of 1986’s Blue Velvet, or playing FBI chief Gordon Cole on Twin Peaks, and pretty much the only thing that changes is the colour of his shirt and his now-grey hair.

However, a subtle change has been taking place. Like many of us, David Lynch has allowed his look to grow progressively wilder over the course of COVID quarantine. Since early this year, he’s seemingly stopped shaving (scrolling through his YouTube page is like watching a stop motion film that charts his beard’s growth) and he’s similarly dispensed with regular haircuts. Who can blame him?

The rare departure from his signature look was made particularly evident in today’s weather report (June 1), which sees him with his hair flopped across his face, rather than slicked back as usual (taking inspiration from Killer Bob, maybe?).

Despite not making reference to his new ‘do, he definitely shows it off, turning from side to side while he recites the forecast: “We’re going to be seeing, once again, beautiful blue skies and golden sunshine, all along the way.”

Understandably, avid watchers of Lynch’s daily series have gone wild for his lockdown hair, drawing comparisons to the Dude in The Big Lebowski, and expressing a sense of envy and/or admiration that, at 75, he’s come out the other side of the pandemic looking better than just about anyone else.

Besides delivering his daily weather updates, and keeping us up-to-date on his various DIY projects, Lynch is reportedly brewing up a new series — working title Wisteria, or Unrecorded Night — for Netflix. While there’s little information to go on yet, former collaborators including Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern have been stirring rumours about the project, with Dern teasing that “there’s a twinkle in his eye and he’s up to something radical and fantastic”.

Take a look at some of the best reactions to David Lynch’s post-lockdown look below.