Why are powerful wizards portrayed to be so unkempt?

Elminster looks ok maybe because people belive that smart people are like Einstein with bad hair I spend more time reading than combing my hair. Wizards typically have high intelligence and average charisma or looks.

Wizards live alone in remote towers and don’t have the time or the need for metrosexual preening.

They’re too busy concocting spells and powerful potions, and reading esoteric and ancient books.

Hm… I think of wizards and sorcerers as different things.

I think of Wizards as more eccentric – they are simply born with an innate ability to divine, the Sight some call it, and have a wisdom that transcends our ideas of etiquette. In order to use that Sight and their power, they have to study – like a ravenous beast hungry for knowledge. Think of that famous photo of Albert Einstein

a Sorcerer, on the other hand, works only with his innate knowledge. There is no study of others’ works, simply trial-and-error experience. He has what he was born with and none else. Think of a sorcerer like a Jedi. No one is reading ancient Jedi scrolls to find the way to tap into blah blah blah… just use the force that is there and bend it to your will. Much sexier, if you’re into evil magic-using. More like Count Dooku

Metrosexual preening! Haaaaahaha!

Nowt more ugly than an unkempt wizard’s sleeve

Attention to one’s appearance is a waste of energy and time. Haven’t any of you worked that out yet? It either shows that one is too busy to be bothered, or is it evidence that a person may be too crazy and depressed to give a fuck.

It’s a matter of priorities, for some.

Long hair on American and European men was out of style from the 1870s through the 1950s.

“Longhair” meant an impractical intellectual. Einstein as mentioned by @RedDeerGuy1 would be an example.

So maybe the long-haired wizard was evocative of both olden times and someone unconcerned with mundane everyday life.

Then there is Voldemort, and his suspenders

Such ancient-inspired appearance will give the impression of vast of knowledge and mysteriousness which are sought after qualities from wizards. A good wizard must have known a spell or two to make himself attractive.

On the other hand, witches are used to be portrayed with malicious, horrifying appearance but now many authors prefer to show witches in attractive and seductive appearance.

Great wizards don’t give a shit about how they look. Don’t need to pretend.

Unlike an engineer, for example, or a craftsman, who know the cost and difficulty involved in finding, obtaining and maintaining the tools of their trade ‘just so’: a place for everything and everything in its place, and then seem to translate that care for tools to their personal appearance, wizards, sorcerers and artists in general seem to create their own environments. Have you ever been in a painter’s or sculptor’s studio? Ever seen the artist at work? Rather messy.

We don’t tend to think of wizards and sorcerers at the opera, or at formal dinner parties or discos. (Or art gallery openings, for that matter.) We tend to think of them at work. And let’s face it, a powerful wizard would be “at work” nearly all of the time. They don’t have very scintillating off-work lives. Like gardeners, mechanics, cowboys and artists, wizards and sorcerers can get pretty messy at work. I suspect that they clean up well, though. If you see a wizard at a disco you might not even suspect that he’s in the wizarding trade.

We should address the elephant in the room. The ‘man bun’. These are wanna-be wizards or sorcerers that can’t quite embody the physical requirements to be as messy and unkept as they need to be. Their impulse to pony-tail and tether their locks is too strong to really portray the character they aspire to be. They fall short. Man-bun wearers are failures. Simply put.

@cazzie Those with man-buns are wanna-be hipsters without the hip to bring it off.

Wizards wield power. They aren’t politicians.
They don’t have to campaign for power, and their powers aren’t limited.

Unlimited Wizard power isn’t a slave to fashion.

on the contrary maybe fashion is a slave to unlimited wizard power?

Or I’ve had one too many candy canes