The most hair-raising comeback ever! The return of THE 80S MULLET
It was a crime against good taste, loved by footballers and cheesy celebrities. So what on earth has sparked its unlikely revival?
IT’S a style that was once the de riguer haircut for 1980s footballers and pop stars before it quickly fell out of fashion. But if you thought the mullet had disappeared, think again. As Paul Mescal stepped out onto the red carpet at the Oscars, those telltale signs were there — the short sides, the business at the front and maybe not quite a party but at least a small gathering at the back.
And of course, where our own unlikely style guru Mescal leads, others are bound to follow. From catwalks to classrooms — with a particular boom among teenage schoolboys who are flocking to barbers in their droves with old pictures of David Bowie and Jason Donovan on their smartphones — mullets are everywhere you look.
Models with mullets have been spotted on the runways in London and Milan, gracing the collections of designers including Stella McCartney, Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen. Young actresses including Emilia Schule — who recently starred as French queen Marie Antoinette — have also been experimenting with the look.
The style that launched a thousand 80s hair disasters has been taken on by TV heartthrobs, too: Normal People’s Paul Mescal sported one on the Bafta red carpet this year and Dacre Montgomery, who played Billy in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, has been credited with single-handedly making the mullet cool again
And the trend that was once a footballers’ favourite is creeping back into vogue with the grown ups. For example GP Dr Alastair Bush would normally expect to follow certain rules as a doctor for the military. Order is strictly enforced in the military and there are policies in place when it comes to discipline, manners and appearance.
But there is one rule Dr Bush is happy to flout — and he does so with unashamed flamboyance.
For the past two years he has been growing a thick, tawny mullet, cascading down his back in luscious, free-flowing curls.
While his young patients have watched on in envy, the 45-yearold doc’s mullet — now an impressive 30cm — has become a talking point. But it won’t be here for much longer.
In two weeks Alastair and his novelty hairstyle will travel 10,600 miles to Kurri Kurri, a small town two hours’ north of Sydney, Australia. The reason? Mulletfest, a global event in which more than 8,000 competitors vie for the coveted title of Best Mullet — and where Alastair, who’s using the challenge to raise money for a testicular cancer charity, hopes to bring the medal home with him.
It is, no matter how you look at it, an utterly ridiculous feat and perhaps even more ridiculous that pictures of Alastair’s flowing mullet have made headlines in newspapers everywhere this week.
As he puts it: ‘It’s a fairly low bar to enter. All I’ve had to do is grow my hair.’
But this rural GP’s journey to fully-fledged mullet-wearer has captured something of a phenomenon in modern grooming.
For his is far from the only mullet being proudly sported on the streets of Ireland and beyond .
Hair salons the Mail spoke to say they’ve seen a surge in requests from clients, with one senior barber cutting more mullets in the last two years than she has in the past two decades. Online, interest in the retro look is booming: on video-sharing platform TikTok there are more than 10 billion views for the term ‘mullet’ while
Google recorded 2.24 million searches for it worldwide in the past 12 months.
For what is, frankly, an awful throwback, there’s a lot of love out there for the mullet. So what’s behind this bizarre obsession?
Renowned hairdresser George Northwood, who counts Rachel Weisz, Alexa Chung and Alicia Vikander among his A-list clients, says it’s a ‘quintessential style’, reminiscent of ‘hair icons’ such as Debbie Harry and Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. ‘I have seen an uptick in clients referencing mullet-type cuts, such as shags or Seventies and Eighties styles,’ he tells the Mail. ‘This built since we reopened after lockdown. Our clientele are into the much more wearable, less severe take on the trend, with flattering layers and a statement fringe. My clients don’t use the terminology “mullet”. They say they want it a bit long, but a bit short, choppier, with more layers and shaggier.’
George, who admits to once havgers ing a mullet himself (complete with extensions) says the ‘undone approach’ is popular as it means fewer trips to the hairdresser.
‘It’s much more forgiving and looks more effortless and wearable when it’s grown out slightly.’
Irish Daily Mail columnist and Belfast-based hairdresser Paul Stafford agrees it was the long locks of lockdown that led to this resurgence.
‘There was a sense that twentysomethings had long hair that they had never had before and there was a sense of having a bit of fun and doing it for a laugh,’ Stafford says. ‘There was another burgeoning 80s revival happening anyway within fashion and music as desinsensible started using 80s iconology as reference points for their collections and catwalk shows. And there’s an element of rebellion about the mullet — it’s so bad, it’s good.’
But it was the low-maintenance aspect. appealed to the aptlynamed Dr Bush, who started his mullet mission in the summer of 2021, when his usual hairdresser was closed during lockdown. ‘My nephew and his friends from school started growing mullets when they couldn’t get a trim, and one Christmas we were chatting and looking on the internet when I came across this competition,’ he explains. ‘It looked like a lot of fun.’
As someone who’d always had a short-back-and-sides, it wasn’t the feat itself that concerned him, but the attitudes of friends and work colleagues.
‘My hair’s quite thick so I wasn’t worried about being able to do it, it was more about whether I could endure the look for so long,’ he explains, adding: ‘My male friends like it but my female friends are generally less enthusiastic. There seems to be quite a strong gender divide when it comes to mullet appreciation. That said, a lot of girls are jealous of my curls.
‘My mother hates it. The first and last thing she says to me when I see her is, “Please tell me you will cut it off”. Thankfully I work with a lot of young soldiers, mainly in their twenties, and they find the mullet funny. I wouldn’t have grown it if I had regular patients.’
He admits his haircare routine has got a lot more complicated.
‘Previously it involved a bit of Tresemme and that was it. Now I use Shea Moisture Coconut &
Curl & Shine conditioner then Hask Argan Oil [Repairing Hair Oil] followed by either Pantene Perfect Waves or Aunt Jackie’s Don’t Shrink Gel.
‘Having long hair has given me a much better understanding of all the effort girls with long hair go to. Brushing out tangles in the shower is something I won’t miss.’
But he says he’s also reaped the rewards — ‘the guy who cuts it does the front two-thirds only, not the back, so I get my haircut cheaper’ — not to mention raising over a thousand euro for the testicular cancer charity, a plight he is passionate about raising awareness of, given his young male patients.
And it is among the younger generation that this ‘ironic’ hairstyle is very du jour. For walk into any Leaving Cert class or school playHibiscus ground today and you’ll spot boys aged 11 to 18 showing off ‘dos their father would have been proud of 40-odd years ago.
Charlotte Clemons’ 14-year-old Barney is one of them. ‘He’s been sporting his mullet since a terrible lockdown buzzcut grew out in 2021,’ she explains. ‘It was his idea, borne of wanting to tidy up a bad haircut, but he then continued to have it shaved at the sides and grew the back long. He became known locally as “the boy from the rugby club with the mullet”.’
Charlotte, 45, who runs her own business, with her husband and four children, says she was initially ‘embarrassed by the judgment from other mums’.
Like other women her age, she remembers them from the first time around. ‘I had flashbacks to Pat Sharp’s mullet and just had a general aversion to boys having long hair, but when I said to Barney, “You look like Pat Sharp” he replied simply: “I know and I like it!” He was fully aware of all the old mullets from decades ago but he quite likes being a bit retro.’
For his part, Barney says plenty of his friends have mullets, and they even compare haircuts with ‘mullet-off’ competitions to see whose is best. ‘It’s a popular style among my rugby and agricultural mates, as well as at my state school,’ he adds.
‘Most of my friends love my hair, including the girls. I think it suits me and have got no plans to cut it off in the near future.’
Rugby and mullets seem to go hand in hand: sportswriters noted their prevalence during the World Cup last month, and of course former Ireland rugby star Shane Byrne has always sported one, saying his wife has banned him from giving it the chop. Connacht’s Darragh Murray chopped his off for charity earlier this year but is now sporting a shorter version.
Elsewhere in sport, Aussie golfer Cameron Smith has been captivating the world with his flowing mullet on the international courses.
Both Bridget Hawthorne’s sons, Fred, 14, and Louis, 12, have been inspired by their sporting heroes to get mullets in the past year.
Bridget, 46, an executive assistant, says she was ‘pretty relaxed’ about it but her husband, who wears his hair short, was less keen. ‘They’re both really into rugby and play at their school, while Louis also plays for a club locally,’ she explains. ‘Their main driver is that their favourite All Blacks rugby player is Tamaiti Williams, who has a magnificent mullet.’ Reactions to the boys’ hair have been ‘mixed’, she adds. ‘A few friends with daughters have been horrified. One of them joked “They used to be such lovely-looking boys!”’
As she and other parents will attest, mullets can be controversial, with many seeing them as a sign of youthful protest or rebellion. In fact, the hairstyle was outlawed in Iran in 2010, as part of a clampdown on ‘decadent’ Western fashions. Last year, a private school in Australia made headlines after its principal banned mullets, branding them ‘an inappropriate hairstyle that does not comply with the college’s expectations’. Any pupil seen with one was suspended pending a visit to the barber.
While synonymous in many minds with the 80s, mullets have a pedigree going back thousands of years when they were symbols of war. Historians have traced the style as far back as ancient Egypt and Greece, where texts suggest it was popular with warriors.
The helmet-like hair was not only aesthetically pleasing, with the longer length at the back showing a man’s strength and virility, but practical, too: the back kept their necks warm, while the shorter strands at the front ensured they could see and were less likely to be yanked by an adversary.
In Homer’s Iliad, the spear-toting Abantes warriors are described as having ‘hair long at the back’.
Centuries later, with the dawn of the punk scene in the 70s and early 80s, mullets made a comeback. Bowie’s famous Ziggy Stardust ‘do was actually cut by his mother’s hairdresser, but the offbeat look soon set a trend and inspired others, including Andre Agassi, Patrick Swayze, Mel Gibson and even George Clooney.
Not every mullet was as swoonworthy as the original: among looks that should, perhaps, not be repeated were DJ Pat Sharp’s spiky mullet and Kevin Keegan’s infamous bubble perm: mullets were particularly popular among professional footballers.
There are, say Matt Taylor and Nick Peters, creative directors at Daniel Galvin, right and wrong ways to work a mullet — and certain types of hair it’s more likely to suit. ‘It does suit younger people more because with older people it could look old-fashioned, rather than on-trend. Also, it tends to work better on coloured hair as it enhances movement.’
THE modern mullet, they add, is different to the retro ones, ‘due to people having put down the hairdryer and hairspray and opting for a more natural, wearable texture’.
Indeed, George Northwood says the 2023 mullet is so popular it’s been adopted by women, too: the likes of Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Suki Waterhouse, Billie Eilish and Scarlett Johansson have all sported the style in recent years.
Its ubiquity undeniable, George says there are important style rules to follow if you do go down the controversial route.
‘You’ll require regular trims of those shorter layers in order to keep the correct shape, depending on how severe a mullet you like,’ he explains.
‘If you’ve got more of a bold, choppier mullet, you will really want to show off and own those shorter layers; they’re quite the statement. The real, classic mullet isn’t for the faint-hearted.’
This is something Dr Alastair Bush knows only too well. His hopes are high for a medal at Mulletfest, but once the competition is over, he says, the unorthodox hairstyle has to go.
Pals have suggested he cuts it off and either donates it to charity or turns it into a novelty wig.
Dr Bush’s current view is less romantic, however. ‘I’m well and truly done with the mullet now,’ he says. ‘I think I may be cutting it off and leaving it in Australia.
‘It’s been a fun journey — but I miss my short-back-and-sides.’
His mother will, no doubt, be very relieved.