While I planned to work my way down the body in as unisex a way as possible, there’s a proverb somewhere that says something about looking a gift-horse in the mouth. In this case we’ll forgo the mouth to look slightly above the lip toward what I’m observing as a re-emergence of the mustache in North America.
I started seeing it a while ago at TimeKode – since about May or June of ‘08, ’stache after ’stache began to pop up in the party. While in Toronto over the holidays I kept my eyes open, and indeed there were more mustaches on the street than ever – on younger men too. I thought it was strange, but I was sure that after being ostracized by all of the respectable women in their lives that these guys would realize the obvious: we live in a post-Tom Selleck world – mustache’s are a no-no.
But at the ripe old age of 26 I was showing my age. These guys experienced no loss of attention or affection from the fairer sex – in fact it probably increased. And this confused me. In the months to come the trend would seem to trickle up to Hollywood, with star after star throwing caution to the wind and challenging the abiding anti-mustache coalition of the late 80’s and 90’s. Eventually Brad Pitt would confirm that the ’stache, love-it-or-lump-it, had fully arrived in North America - again.
While in India, they seemed to be experiencing the reverse as this article investigates:
The famous beards and moustaches of India – seen as representing a huge tradition to the outside world – are under threat, a new book says.
It says that the country’s famous facial hairs are disappearing as India enters the clean-shaven digital age.
“Hair India – A Guide to the Bizarre Beards and Magnificent Moustaches of Hindustan” says that India’s extravagant beards and moustaches – proudly sported by generations of Indian men – are being trimmed as the country becomes more clean-shaven and urban.
In reality there are only so many trends in facial hair that are even possible, so I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising that the re-emergence cycle of lip-hair is so short in North America. It’s more the apparent spikiness of the phenomenon that’s interesting.
How could it be that while we’re bringing them back in North America, over in the east they’re shaving them off? How does place delimit style conventions in an increasingly globalized world? Is the world spiky not only in terms of economic prosperity, productivity, and innovation, but in terms of styles as well?
And now, as always, some music.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Great post. Great series… btw, I think there has been a big mustache movement in Australia for a number of years…. There might be an annual charity drive each year related to men’s health (prostate cancer)… I think it is in November (which they called Movember – is in Mo(ustache).. Again, fun series… lets talk before you do T-Shirts! that is a big one!
January 7th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thanks for the comment/compliment David. I come from the goatee era for the most part, though the thin-tight-lipped Caribbean moustache that my pops rocked through my youth (and currently from time-to-time) seems to have never really gone out of style amongst Caribbean people.
I think that one thing that’s so striking about the North American re-emergence has to do with how virulently moustaches were rejected in that late 80’s era. I’m now wondering if it had anything to to with the presiding anti-urban sentiment of the day: to plug it into Richard’s gay-index framework, many gays rocked that ’stache well past when it was advisable in the non-gay public domain. Gay and moustache had a semiotic sympathy for quite some time actually.
One way to look at it is that as North America settled into the ‘burbs it seems like they kinda left the ’stache in the city and hoped never to see it again on their faces or in the media. Now their kids are playing doctor frankenstein and because of the truncated feedback loop between the media and the streets, hollywood is following suit.
Or they may just legitimately look bad. Who am I to judge though?
And yeah, T-shirts will be big! Maybe the only thing bigger is shoes, and that’s a real maybe. I’ll get up with you David!
January 7th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Women of other eras often preferred facial hair. My family once knew a woman from Leeds (Yorkshire, England) who was born about 1870. For health reasons she had to avoid salt, a situation she found grievous. She used to say: “An egg without salt is like a kiss without a moustache.”
November 5th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
game has an ill rhyme about rappers obsession with white tees vs. cotton picking in the not so distant past. just sayin’