The mullet’s resurgence divides Australia
The controversial hairstyle is either an embarrassment or a point of national pride—or both
Consider the mullet, a hairstyle that has a good claim to being Australia’s national do. It comes in various shapes and sizes. The mullet can be “extreme”—shaved bare on top. Or it can be spiked up like a mohawk. It is sometimes “grubby” and dreadlocked. And then there is the “ranga” mullet, meaning red-headed (it’s an abbreviation of “orangutan”), which is always a crowd-pleaser.
Since 2018, fans have convened every year for Mulletfest, a competition to find the most outrageous examples. “A lot of people wear this hairstyle and have a dirtbag lifestyle,” muses Timmy Pinger, a mustachioed coalminer whose long, straight mullet carried him to victory in Mulletfest’s heats in Dubbo, a small city in New South Wales, on August 20th. But Australia is full of “sophisticated, hard-working, honest-living” mullet-wearers too, he says.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Mullet spring"
More from Asia
In South-East Asia, the war in Gaza is roiling emotions
The governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have responded very differently
India has quietly transformed its ports
That is good for trade, and a good sign for reform
Lawrence Wong in his own words
Singapore’s next prime minister sat down with The Economist