Why is a mullet hairstyle called a mullet? | Notes and Queries

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SEMANTIC ENIGMAS

Why is a mullet hairstyle called a mullet?

Emily Fern, Hull UK

Mullett websites generally credit the coining of this phrase to Mike D of the Beastie Boys. This came from the song 'Mullet Head' on 1994's 'Ill Communication' album, which described the haircut and its wearers.
Jon Kay, London

The hairstyle was first worn by French fashion guru Henri Mollet in the early seventies. The "Mollet" did not see much light apart from in the french underground dance scene, until it was ressurected by popular television personalities such as Pat Sharp, the word having been anglicised by this point to "Mullet".
Gary Badger, Scarborough, England

There are mullet websites? Do these people have nothing better to do with their lives?
Simon Koppel, London

I'd swear the word "Mullet" was in use way before 1994...
Ebenezer, London, UK

Because it looks like you have a dead fish on your head?
Janet Edwards, London, England

It comes from the word "mullethead." meaning dim-witted, which originated in the late 19th century.
j666, san francisco usa

Mr Badger,
Please do not confuse our non-British friends by attributing the words 'popular' and 'personality' to Pat Sharp.
Joel Bradley, London England

I suppose we should put our heads together and mullet over...
Caragh Little, Portrush, Northern Ireland

Legend has it the fishmongers of Iceland cultivated the hair style to keep their necks warm and dry against the North Atlantic spray. Alternatively, the Mullet has its origin in the ancient Palaces and Universities of Poland. Mullet is actually a compound word combining the words "mull" to ponder, and "et" a Polish suffix meaning eternally. Thus the Mullet gets its name from those who were forever engaged in intellectual processes.
Richard Benjamin, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire

Other names are slightly more self-explanatory: the hairstyle is also known as the "Kentucky Waterfall" or the "Mississippi Top Hat" in parts of the US, and the "Bouncing Cobra" in parts of West Wales. In Germany it is known as the "Vokuhila" (vorne kurz, hinten lang= short at front, long at back).
Anna, Cardiff

I don't profess to know the answer to the great why? of the mullet, but for those seeking further enlightenment I offer the following resource; http://www.mullet.co.uk
Michael, Liverpool UK

Mullet is the heraldic term for a five-pointed star. Does that help?
Alan Mills, Alne UK

My American friends call this haircut a BIFRIB - Business In Front, Rockin' In Back.
Vicky Walker, London England

Very popular in various parts of the USA but mainly in the South. Has been nicknamed "Tennessee Top Hat" and "Kentucky Waterfall".
Steve Bonner, Austin, Texas USA

I believe Paul Newman refers to Mullet Heads in the film "Cool Hand Luke", made in 1967.
Chris Quinn, Widnes UK

In Austria it's called a "VOKUHILA" (my spelling may be incorrect) a shortened version of "VOrne KUrze HInten LAng" (Front short, Back long). And I'm convinced there is an eternal competition here for who maintains the best one.
Steuart Mackenzie Harrison, Vienna

In Sweden the mullet is generally known as the hockey hairdo. Basically, it's a compromise for those who wants to be cool with long hair but still needs to fit it under the helmet.
Marlene, Stockholm, Sweden

My favorite mullet classification yet, is: The Missouri Compromise. If you've ever been to Missouri, you can understand why.
Jo, Boston, MA USA

In Canada, this hairdo is referred to as "hockey hair". Friends from Mississippi call it "Short-Long" or, more simply, "Shlong".
Andrew Tankard, Calgary, Canada

Not sure if the phrase was German or Dutch, but Mullet was described to me as "Motch Kopf", translating literally as Carpet tile head.
Paul B, Bray Ireland

The name comes from the great thinkers at the beginning of time. As the thinkers thought about things, (for example should a tree be called a tree or a shoe? etc) they scratched their heads as they 'mulled it' over. The main area being scratched was the top of the head. As the thinking took a very long time, all the head scratching restricted growth on top, whereas the back was left to grow into a fine mane.
S Parker, Brighton England

If Mr Jon Kay thinks they they came from a 1994 Beastie Boys song, then why were they so popular in the 80's? And now with David Beckham!
Paul, UK

dont really know the answer - but ask yourself this what is a MIP mullet in progress, you should see them in Wales, they're superb!!
kirsty, blackwood south wales

I thought "schlong" meant something quite different....
Sarah, Hull UK

actually, the word 'schlong' does perfectly describe anyone with a mullet.
Jon, Havant

The Beastie Boys didn't invent the hairstyle, but are credited with coming up with this name for it, or at least bringing it to the public consciousness, with an article in the second issue of Grand Royal magazine which you can find at http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/southbank/pottery/3/grandroyal.html
Karl, Barnoldswick, Lancashire

Actually, in Sweden it is known as a 'hockey helmet' because it fits perfectly under a hockey helmet.
Anneli Backman, Stockholm, Sweden

My daughter was born with a lot of hair and I never cut it. By the time she was one it had grown into what was then called a 'feather cut'. People kept asking my where I got it cut and often didn't believe it had just grown that way. I don't know where the term 'mullet' came from, but a feather cut was considered very stylish then (on women anyway!) This was in 1971.
Sarah, Ledbury, England

The feather cut, far from prefiguring the mullet, was originally the style worn by skinhead girls. Hair length, despite the name of that youth cult, has never been a significant factor, and many offshoots and subcults have at different times been associated with a variety of different coiffures. The feather cut itself began to be worn by some male skinheads - which, when added to the uniform of turn-ups, bovver boots and tanktop, with optional tartan accessories, gives on one hand the Rod Stewart look; and on the other what was to become the image of the Bay City Rollers.
John Bennett, Glasgow, Scotland

As a barber/stylist working since 1976, I've been a first-hand witness to the birth and death of this style in modern times. As is often the case with new trends, the first people seen with them are college age, usually, but not always, of the art school set, and as such, cut by a friend, as an act of creative expression. From there they typically spread through the culture in both directions age-wise, until they're seen on 4-year-olds and 60-somethings.

My first memory of what is now known as a mullet, was early David Bowie and Rod Stewart. By the early Eighties, it had closer ties to heavy-metal/head banger/slam dance crowds, of which my junior high aged son and his friends were fans, and where I got my first practice at cutting them. Also during this time, 20- and 30-something people of both sexes were asking for it, and it was a favorite with many of my gay women clients. By the early Nineties, it was being fervently embraced by all hip 4-8 year-olds, as well as 40-ish guys who liked the idea of "letting their freak flags fly" but were either unable (because of job dress codes), or unwilling (because of job safety issues) to have it hanging in their faces. At this stage in the life span of all trends, the people who started it will not be caught dead with it, and in the case of this particular one, even older guys were getting hip to the fact that, since, if young guys wanted long hair, they just grew it all out long, they(older guys) were actually typing themselves as older by clinging to it.

Now we find ourselves at the stage of the trend we would call dead. But wait, for some reason I'd need a degree in sociology to explain, like the back-combed bee hive bouffant of the sixties, this is precisely when both country and mafia types embrace it. This, of course, partially explains the extreme digust and hipper-than-thou attitude the rest of us so gleefully enjoy expressing at such blatant disregard for style law!

But this is the first time I've experienced the end of a trend take on a persona in and of itself. And how to explain the spread, not just of the term "mullet", but how it carried with it the immediate connotation of low-life, illiterate trailer trash? Somewhere around '94 or'5 I started hearing it, but NEVER before that. I started asking clients about it but nobody had any idea of its origin. Don't get me wrong, I never particularly liked cutting the damn thing; it was like having to do two cuts for the price of one. I'm just intrigued with the phenomenon of how a seemingly insignificant term has come from literally out of nowhere, and yet everyone inexplicably knows exactly what it is. So I wonder, is this the first incident of some kind of mass mind meld?
Barbara Rues/Nana Baba, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A.

I'm just checking to see if my answer about the history of the "mullet" hairstyle was printed when I submitted it last week? Can't seem to find that page again.
Barbara Rues/Nana Baba, Kansas City, Missouri, US

There is an Australian saying: "Looking like a stunned mullet". I don't think this refers to Paul McCartney when he fronted Wings, but he certainly had the mullet haircut in the early 70s, as did David Bowie in his Ziggy days.

My understanding of the Aussie saying is to look like a stunned mullet implies you've had a bit of a shock, mate, as any mullet fish would have when its head is smacked across the gunwale by a fisherman. It also is a sly dig referring to a few marbles not rolling the right way, meaning the lights are on but nobody is home. The vacuous look. The mullet look. Why confuse a fish that's done nothing to you with a poncy haircut? Buggered if I know.
Daniel Lillford, Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, Canada

In Montreal, in French, the concept acquires a geographical edge to it. It is referred to as a "Coupe Longueil" or Longueil Cut, Longueil being the name of a suburb perceived as a soulless place devoid of any redeeming characteristics.
Jean-Michel Sotiron, Montreal Canada

Beauticians here in the U.S. referred to it as a "bi-level" at first. I had one in 1984 when I left my ex - I remember it was quite stylish at the time, and it featured that straight-across action over the ears rather than the more conventional pointy look. Years later, when people began referring to mullets, I didn't have any idea what they were talking about.
Becky Parton, Atlanta, GA U.S.

Before Chambers Dictionary started editing out its amusing but accurate entries, it defined "mullet" as "A haircut short at the front, long at the back and ridiculous all over".
Alec McHoul, Mundijong W. Australia

The best website relating to this is the extraordinary www.uglyfootballers.com - not only is there a mullet section, here's a section entitled 'beauty and the beast' devoted to pug fotballers and their model wives.
Vaughan Elliott, Sopot Poland

Like some other contributers I adopted the style in 1984 (when I was 19) and kept it until 1987, when it became popular and I was therefore obliged to change it. I'm sure the term 'mullet' was unknown then. All fashion begins and ends as anti-fashion and the universal contempt in which the mullet is obviously held is strongly reminiscent of the attitudes my friends and I held in the 80s towards all things 70s, such as flares. And we know what happened there. It's a sure sign that it is already becoming cool again in alternative circles, and will probably be mainstream again within a few years, mark my words. All the previous correspondents should prepare for the time when their anti-mullet attitudes will mark them out as old-fashioned and hopelessly uncool!
Derek Macpherson, Melbourne Australia

The best name i've heard so far in regards to this abomination is "'the achy breaky big mistakey"
rod, Sydney Australia

In New Zealand the rear part of a mullet is referred to as a 'mud flap' - meaning mudguard as on a car.
Luke, Wellington New Zealand

I have a neo-mullet. It's about halfway between a faux-hawk and a mullet, wherein the sides are short and the top and back are slightly longer. Looks a lot like a mohawk when I style the long bits out! I've heard it called a Maori mane and a New Zealand Mullet.
Brett, Colorado, USA

The first reply is correct. The Oxford English Dictionary also states that Mike D was the first to coin the term. Whilst the film Cool Hand Luke did indeed include the term, it is widely regarded that the film is referring to the fish of the same name.
David McGregor, Newcastle, England

In French Montréal it is called a "coupe Longeuil" after a suburb not known for high fashion.
Seán Dagher, Montreal, Canada

Would you want to be seen alive or dead with a haircut called a haddock?
Charles Norrie, Islington, UK

bull to all of the above... as difficult as it may be to believe, my daughter and I started the word mullet. In a good 'ol boy north of Destin Florida, is a town called Niceville..Had an annual " Mullet Festival.. When my daughter and I went in 1987, we noticed that all of the men (rednecks) wore flannel shirts and sported the "short in front and long in back" hair do...From that day on, my daughter and I called every guy that looked that way...mullets....not the hairstyle...the person..and then we moved to Pittsburgh, and we coined the phrase here and it caught on...there it is..I'll swear on a bible that this is true...nothing complicated...just the truth...When we first heard the term mullet for a hairstyle, it was the mid-nineties....we just screamed in disbelief...knowing that it was us that coined that term.
Mare, Destin Fl. USA

in the 70's it was called a 'shag', that's what bowie and stewart had. in the 80's in usa it was indeed called a bi-level. it was NOT called a mullet until the 90's.
julie, placerville usa

The Mullet haircut is 2 haircuts in 1 because the long ponytail is not cut and the sides of the mullet hair is short so I LIKE THE MULLET HAIRSTYLE AND MULLETS RULE!!!!
Aaron Lockwood, Milton Keynes United Kingdom

All of the answers from US contributors are, evidently, applicable only to that side of the 'pond'. Here in the UK, the early '70s Bowie cut was called just that. Rod Stewart's cut of same era was a feather cut and was, incidentally, a different cut from the '80s mullet, sported mostly at that time by footballers lacking a keen fashion sense. Stylised versions of it prevailed throughout the '80s, until the really 'savage', ugly version that hung around after everyone else had long since abandoned it, tended to be sported by heavy metal enthusiasts and red necks around the globe...
Artmatters, London UK

If I am not mistaken, we called this type of haircut the "Bundesliga haircut" in the eighties - possibly because it seemed ever so popular with the German football players ...
Nika, Slovenia

In the Netherlands it was popular from the late 1980s, mainly among lower middle class guys (the same folk that also wore shiny purple tracksuits). I believe the fans of the soccer club ADO (the Hague) were early adopters. In the Hague it was called a 'tapijtnek' (carpet neck), and I think that it was referred to as 'matje' (little mat) in Rotterdam.
Maike, Leiden, the Netherlands

Because it's short on top, short on the side, and long at the back. Because my daughter (age 22), son (age 20) told me it was and told me to cut it short on the back as it was out of style. I said my hair is thick and heavy and hot in the summer, I wear a hat, and need the hat to fit my head, yet want to grow my hair long, so bring back the mullet of the 80s for females, and we can still have men run their fingers through our hair, feel comfortable on hot summer days, and take care of our hair easily. Bring back the mullet - let it live on. Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney rock.
Jennifer Mcdougall, Portage la Prairie, Canada

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