Fashion Synopsis

Business in the front, party in the back.

Hockey-hair, bi-level, Camaro, mud-flap, sho-lo…This eclectic haircut goes by many names, but the essence remains the same: short top, long back. An outcropping of the earlier shag, the mullet meshed two extremes and furthered the outrageous androgynous trend started by the glam rockers of the early seventies.

The unisex pendulum had swung the other way: men gave up the effeminate frills of glam, and women wanted a harder, more masculine edge. Leather-clad rockers adopted the mullet for its fierceness: Joan Jett’s jet-black mullet propelled her to hard chick status in an era when soft, feathered wings were the norm.

By the end of the seventies and into the early eighties, the mullet became an integral part of teenage fashion along with a Trans-Am, tight jeans, muscle tees, mirrored sunglasses and the single dangling earring (in the appropriate ear of course).

While the mullet has faded from mainstream fashion glory, it is still very much alive and well on the heads of everyone from Tejano musicians to NASCAR drivers.

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