Mad for mullets: It’s a ‘party out the back’

My youngest son, Jonah, is now the proud owner of a mullet.

Think Nicolas Cage in Con Air;

John Travolta in Pulp Fiction;

Ewan McGregor in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones; Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers; Bono, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. You get it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the spring 2018 runway was also an ode to the 80s with Off-White’s designer Virgil Abloh sending models including Fernanda Oliveira, Danielle Lashley and Moira Berntz out with fetching, curly, mulleted wigs.

When I first clapped eyes on said son’s mullet, I shuddered, probably because I had an unfortunate flirtation, well, fullblown affair actually, with the mullet in 2000. A stylist convinced me that the trend that was so hot, this look would be perfect on my shoulder-length brunette hair. We are talking extended fringe with undercut. Radical doesn’t even come close.

But where did the unusual term ‘‘mullet’’ originate?

There is one theory that it came from the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, where a group of guys with long hair were called ‘‘mullet heads’’.

In the mid-90s, when the mullet was in full swing, Mike D from the Beastie Boys wrote about it in his magazine Grand Royal, saying, ‘‘There’s nothing quite as bad as a bad haircut. And perhaps the worst of all is the cut we call The Mullet.’’

So what of this hairstyle’s revisitation? London boys are mad for it and so are models like Yana Bovenistier, who is channelling the blended mullet after trading her bob for a shaggy crop with tousled layers.

There are many variations, including the ear-grazing fringe with longer back, affectionately known as ‘‘business in the front, party in back’’. Maybe I should go it again?

For more inspiration, check out British hairstylist John Vial on Instagram with his distinctive interpretation of the mullet.

He reckons the highmaintenance look is experimental and not for everyone. Really? ‘‘The idea was that it would look three-dimensional and aerodynamic,’’ he says.

‘‘It’s a haircut within a haircut and a shape within a shape. It’s not meant to be commercial. It’s meant to push the boundaries.’’

– Sydney Morning Herald