The cigar seems to be going in and out of fashion every year and it creates headlines whether it is through generating headlines about new health scares or by being heralded as a luxurious product that is notoriously linked with rich rock stars, keeping girls thin in fashion circles or being seen in post-masters celebrations on golf courses.  What is it that is so gloriously indulgent about the cigar and which brands of cigar are the most chic?

The cigar has always been a common feature on the golf course and many golfers say that it is the unique combination of the cigar and the open air which makes smoking on a golf course so attractive and pleasurable.  The cigar enjoyed its peak popularity on the golf course in 1990’s but it has since declined and since the health stigma of smoking a cigar has grew bigger and bigger less cigars are being seen on the golf course today.  

The cigar goes hand in hand with fashion and the most famous smoker has to be Kate Moss.When she walked down the catwalk at the Louis Vinton show in Paris in 2011 on anti-smoking day smoking a cigarette she was making a huge statement against the political establishment who had decided to conceal cigars and cigarettes form the general public. As the expression goes, close but no cigar.

The Cigar and the image of the extravagant rock star go hand in hand and it is littered throughout pop culture.  In the nineteenth century the United States alone had consumed three hundred million cigars and cigars were a lot more affordable back then although they soon became seen as a must have accessory for the  discerning wealthy gentlemen when King Edward broke his Mother Queen Victoria’s smoking ban and uttered the immortal words “ Gentleman, you may smoke” .The famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud was a prolific cigar smoker and novelist Evelyn Waugh said “The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana cigar”.
 

The cigar has been a prop used throughout cinema from silent films onwards. It is only recently that we have stopped seeing the cigar used in films because of restrictions placed by film classification boards.  In black and white films it was common to see the handsome wealthy man smoking a cigar and in recent Hollywood films it has become synonymous with “bad guys” or more specifically “rich bad guys”.It seems to be that the cigar is an interchangeable accessory in the film industry and its reputation has always caused headlines in Hollywood.