I have three questions:
Why were mustaches so insanely popular in the 70s? Around what year did they really begin to explode in popularity in the 70s and do you remember being surprised at seeing guys who had been cleanshaven their whole lives suddenly grow one?
Did the same level of popularity carry over to the 1980s?
Do you think mustaches will be popular again within this decade or the next?
Moderator Action
While the popularity of mustaches is probably factual enough, the rest of this is going to require opinions, so let’s move this over to IMHO (from GQ).
Even clean-cut guys tended to wear longer hair and grow facial hair, and wore blue jeans. If you were clean-shaven and dressed like guys did in the 60s, you were considered “square” and risked being openly mocked.
The 80s went back to a more clean-cut look. Mustaches were still worn by some, but they were nowhere near as popular.
No freaking clue.
Mustaches are not popular?
For some time before the 70s the clean cut look was the norm. Starting in the 60s people began to express their individuality and for men growing out their facial hair was an easy way to do it. At first it seemed attractive because it was different, and an obvious symbol of masculinity.
I wasn’t around then, but I’m pretty steeped in 20th century popular culture. It seems to me, the 50s Beat culture began the whole “let your hair grow” thing in opposition to the very clean-cut trends of the recent past, and the Hippies in the 60s took that and ran with it. But it didn’t leave the counterculture and become something average Joes embraced until late in the decade and into the early 70s.
But a lot of hippies took it pretty far, not shaving at all, not their legs, armpits, or, for dudes, their faces. But as it trickled into the mainstream, it got more toned down. Women kept shaving their body hair, and rebelled through clothing, by not wearing bras, or wearing miniskirts and or blue jeans. Men’s hairstyles got longer, but they still went to the barber to keep them trimmed and stylish. And while shaving expectations were relaxed, men rarely grew a full beard. It was long sideburns, or handlebar mustaches, or goatees.
And in the 80s, as the “clean cut” look began to come back, the mustache seemed to be the last holdout, with Tom Selleck and a handful of other stars keeping them throughout the decade.
As to “why”, facial hair on men was almost exclusively reviled throughout the entire century up to that point. Only very old men wore beards between 1900 and 1950, and even among old men it was quite rare. In 1940, if someone said “Man, you need a shave”, it was probably like telling someone “you need deodorant” today. I suspect seeing those first beatniks with facial hair was quite a shock. Long hair on men, even more so.
For people of a younger age, I suspect it was just as shocking as spiked mohawks and leather jackets with a million zippers. Or “goth” makeup, dyed hair, and all black JNCOs with an “Orgy” t-shirt for an even younger demographic. Teenagers always love to shock their parents. By the 80s though, dudes with long hair and mustaches were the parents. So “clean cut” came back in order to differentiate.
And I’m already seeing more “clean cut” stars and a lot fewer hipster beards today than there were five years ago. These things come in cycles. In fact, the uniform lack of beards in the first half of the 20th century is far more interesting to me than the cyclical nature of facial hair since the 60s.
Yes, mustaches will become popular again, though I won’t hazard a guess as to when. Our society is very disjointed at the moment, so these fads tend to cycle at different rates now depending on the subculture, rather than in unison through the “mainstream” which I’m not even sure exists anymore.
In his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1841, Charles Mackay discusses the ongoing cycle of facial hair fads. Although for any given fad, you can cite some particular influences, as with the rebellion of the 1970’s, the bottom line is that men have been cycling through various facial hair options for hundreds of years. Looking at a chart of presidents gives a clear picture of facial hair changes at one level of society.
Mustaches will definitely be popular again, but it’s hard to predict exactly when. There have been a bunch of recent articles saying that we have now reached “peak beard,” but there were also a lot of peak beard predictions in 2014, and they didn’t go away. My prediction is that whenever we reach peak beard, it will be followed by a mustache (and possibly sideburn) era before we reach base beard (clean shaven).
I hope they come back sometime during my life. Mustaches are hot!
As with many cultural changes, I think it started (or more accurately, was popularized) by the Beatles in or around 1967. Do a google image search for “beatles 1967” and you can see that all four grew mustaches in 1967. A search of “beatles 1966” shows none of them had them the year prior. The look got more popular in the years that followed, propelled (as usual) by musicians and athletes. It carried on for at least 15 years, and was at its height in the mid to late 70s, certainly into the 80s.
Actors, musicians and other creative types have tried to bring back the 'stache over the years, but it really hasn’t caught on again. I had a mustache from the 70s into the 90s until my wife finally convinced me to shave it off. In some ways I miss it, but I have to admit mustaches look pretty silly at the current time. The stache and goatee look was popular for awhile, but also seems out of favor now.
I don’t know if this works, but as far as I am concerned mustaches are cool.
Facial hair went through a long dry spell that finally loosened up in the 60s. My theory is that the media, TV in particular, wasn’t comfortable with full beards at first since any facial hair was considered rebellious. So they started with the smallest thing they could get away with - hair on the upper lip.
I’m wearing one on my face right now.
Ironic mustaches are popular (though fading). Sincere mustaches are not.
Question is, when will “sincere mustaches” come back? Do you think because of porn + Hitler, they might be something that will NEVER come back - at least not in this century?
I have a suspicion that since mustaches were OK among manly clean cut military men of the era, that translated into civilian life as well, so a lot of men who weren’t quite satisfied with clean-shaven faces grew mustaches as a socially acceptable alternative. After all, mustaches have always been regulation in the military, within certain limits, so if that’s cool in that hyper-clean cut environment, I’m sure that translated into civilian life as acceptable as well.
I complimented a friend’s mustache.
Now she won’t speak to me.
Related thread here.
mmm
That also explains why full beards with short hair suddenly started reappearing around 15 years ago, when the public started seeing pictures of hirsute Green Berets and SEALS in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I think there’s a link between the decline of the mustache and the AIDS crisis, but I can’t quite put it into words.
A thread on this subject isn’t complete without citing the paper “Fashions in Shaving and Trimming of the Beard: The Men of The Illustrated London News, 1842-1972” (pdf)
Two movies with Robert Redford and Paul Newman:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (RR had the mustache)
The Sting (PN had the mustache)
What guy did not want to be one of those two back then (or both)?
