ullets, it seems, are “back”. Again. In recent years celebrities including Miley Cyrus, Lil Nas X and Rihanna have sported “parties in the back”, while swathes of TikTok users have made videos showing off theirs . But Paul Mescal, star of Normal People andand heart-throb of straight woman everywhere, has somehow tipped the scales and made it official: mullets, once acceptable only for hippies and Australians, can be – and very much are – sexy.
Up until about a month ago, I had been wearing my hair in some approximation of a mullet for just over a year. It is now a bit too short at the back to count, which is more a result of my miscommunication with the barber than any real desire to de-mullet. One theory about the mullet comeback is that it is a product of the Covid pandemic, as a result of people who previously had short hair letting it grow out. My own was technically a pandemic mullet, debuting at the end of 2021, just before the Omicron variant had it spending a month mostly tucked inside my dressing gown hood. I’m sure the increase in mullets around me must have spurred on my decision to an extent.
It’s the queerness, the androgyny and the general rule-breaking playfulness of a mullet that made me, and presumably many others, want to try one in the first place. And I know it sounds ridiculously cringey to say, but it is a haircut that made me feel free – free of expectations, free to express myself. Those feelings can’t be thwarted by a few nasty comments or raised eyebrows, I realise now. My mullet can’t grow back fast enough.