Why on God’s green earth was the Moustache Trend ever a thing? Do you remember it? I do. Because I lived it. My friend also tagged me in a meme about it the other day, and I almost reported her for hate speech.
[jwplayer segnuxnH]
Allow me to set the scene.
The year was 2010 and I was but a naive, misguided 13-year-old at an all-girls Catholic school. Everything you need to know about 13-year-old me is in that sentence. I also, for some demented reason, liked moustaches. Not the actual hairy ones. Just the cartoon ones. I thought they were cute and cool. As cool as the phrases “I moustache you a question but I’ll shave it for later” and “Keep Calm and Moustache On” which makes absolutely no sense. One simply cannot “Moustache On”. All of that hurt to type, by the way.
My life back then basically looked exactly like this. And this here is the very same meme my friend tagged me in.
this mustache obsession was so cringey pic.twitter.com/Cbq0K48Cu0
— alejandra (@wrkhs) September 2, 2018
I shit you not, my butthole puckers up every time I look at it. And it’s 99 per cent because I owned three of the nine things in the above. I actually begged my mum to buy me the moustache necklace from Diva. Mum did not understand why I wanted a moustache necklace. I should have listened to Mum.
Side Note: I think Diva carked it back in 2014. RIP. Forever in our hearts.
If this was any other story I would gladly insert a picture of myself from back in the day for peak humiliation but I can’t. I just cannot. You don’t understand. I was forced into the Asian bob haircut from the moment I came out of my mother’s vagine and I was only able to get rid of it in when I was 13. I then – for some dumb as hell decision – decided to give myself little uneven hair loopies that would dangle down from either side of my head. My mate told me I looked like cow tits. You do not want to see a scrawny child with cow tits for hair. You just don’t.
SO INSTEAD, we’re going to circle back to Sentence Number One: Why on God’s green earth was the Moustache Trend ever a thing?
According to American fashion and beauty outlet Bellatory: “It’s believed that the fake moustache trend originated with hipsters as a way to mock conventional ideas of fashion and style. It’s meant to be ironic.”
It’s meant to be ironic, they wrote. And yet.
me in 2012 when the mustache trend was in pic.twitter.com/Xak1Tn0Xk4
— MS.YUMMY (@tarayummy) August 19, 2019
AND YET.
(Diva absolutely sold these in bulk)
I really need one of these watches in my life after my little moustache obsession @ButtonandBow1 #tache pic.twitter.com/uH7RSLyTvd
— charlotte preece (@charlottielou88) August 27, 2013
A N D Y E T.
https://twitter.com/selftitledgucci/status/1162793940036345858
https://twitter.com/ZealousZahra/status/1146889750915309578
It wasn’t just randoms going on about it either. The Moustache Trend was so wild back then that even the suits at the Los Angeles Times wrote a think piece about it. Emphasis on “Los Angeles Times” before I show you this extract.
My theory? The handlebar moustache, simple to render and instantly recognisable in silhouette, has become entrenched as a kind of bifurcated byword for nostalgic longing, a symbolic shorthand that’s being used to signify, key into and co-opt a larger, overarching trend — that of modern-day culture’s renewed appreciation of authenticity and heritage brands.
Or maybe we were just really fucking dumb. And by we I mean me.
