I dont think peoples issue with Swain is his flowing locks

I think its the color scheme.

I think if Swain just had long flowing white hair, but was still Green and Purple people wouldnt notice.

However the "evil" colors of red and black makes him EASILY connectable to that type of character. The Lucius Malfoys, The Sith lords, The Tywin Lannisters.

However the colorswap was also unavoidable. Considering Swain didnt match the rest of Noxus. For the time that made sense since he wasnt THAT in the public eye, he was a member of the black rose. But since he was reworked to the sole figurehead of Noxus, unconnected to the black rose, the uniform colors were unavoidable.

Maybe im reading too much into this but it was something that I thought of and MIGHT be plausible.