English author and journalist Mark Simpson is credited/blamed for coining the word 'metrosexual' in an essay titled 'Here come the mirror men' in the UK's Independent newspaper in 1994.
It wasn't however until Simpson introduced his insufferably pretty offspring to the US in 2002, naming David Beckham as the prime exemplar, that the word took off. Simpson is also attributed with introducing us to the 'retrosexual' (in the sense of the anti-metrosexual).
In 2010 the global cool-hunting/trend-spotting website Science of the Time described him as 'the world's most perceptive writer about masculinity'. In December 2008 GQ Russia listed him topless and oiled up in their top ten Things That Changed Men's Lives, above Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigmund Freud - and even Biotherm Homme. Both the New York Times and The London Times acclaimed his saucy concept of 'Sporno' as one of their 'Ideas of the Year'.
Simpson is the author of several books including: Saint Morrissey, Male Impersonators, It's a Queer World, Anti-Gay (Ed.), The Queen Is Dead, and Sex Terror.
