We can largely thank the mullet-donning stars Joe Exotic (Tiger King) and Crystal Methyd (Ru Paul’s Drag Race) for planting the seeds of this flourishing trend in spring 2020, which has since become a widespread cultural phenomenon. “It’s completely true what they say,” pop star Troye Sivan told Vogue.com when asked about the hair he debuted in his recent music video, which opens with a dramatic shot of him cutting his own mullet. “It’s terrible and amazing at the same time.” Sivan is just one of countless celebrities to join the mullet ranks in the previous year, alongside Miley Cyrus, Rihanna (whose Savage X Fenty show was littered with models sporting the same style), Cara Delevingne, Barbie Ferreira, Jacob Elordi, Halsey, Debby Ryan, Irina Shayk, Maisie Williams, Keke Palmer and more.
Fashion’s most controversial haircut, the mullet, has made a comeback during the pandemic. Cassidy George tracks the rollercoaster history of this divisive trim.
Style can be – among other things – a way for individuals to express the influence of the external world. It makes perfect sense, then, that the definitive beauty trend of the previous year – one of the most chaotic and traumatic years in global memory – is the resurgence of one of the most reviled and lampooned haircuts in modern history: the mullet. The long in the back, short on the top-and-sides look has made a powerful and poetic comeback during the coronavirus pandemic, that (like the virus itself) shows no signs of leaving us soon.
