Return of the Stache

I remember hanging out with my friends in the sixth grade and talking about fashion, which was not something that came up often, as you can imagine. We were acutely aware of the wrong look, however, which was anything that smacked of conformity or appeared as if you spent more than three minutes on it before dashing out the door. You had to have that tousled but unconcerned look.

Truth is, we spent a lot of time thinking about what we wore. Tattered jeans, denim vests, and Apache ties were common. So were overcoats that made you look like a doorman and hats large enough to pull a rabbit out of. A counterculture was emerging, and by 1968 the entire world, it seemed, was up in smoke–literally. If not from urban protests, then certainly from weed. In Paris it was both.

Standing on the street corner, my friends and I came to the conclusion that bell bottoms “would never die.” We were serious. We all wore them (so much for nonconformity) and couldn’t imagine a world in which straight-legged jeans or cuffed pants would ever appear again. After all, the Fab Four and Mick Jagger wore them, right? There was nothing more to discuss. Case closed.

Also around this time I stopped referring to jeans as “dungarees.” What can I say? I was a late bloomer and learned how babies were made only earlier that same year. I remember being repulsed at the idea. Up to that point, I had worked out a complicated theory involving the co-mingling of gasses from a husband and wife lying under the sheets together. It’s best that I leave that for another post.

By 1978 we were wearing Angels Flight pants and leisure suits like John Travolta. We went to clubs with disco balls and flashing floors. I once presented myself on stage before my college classmates wearing a yellow, polyester leisure suit and clogs with three-inch heels. I must have looked like Big Bird. I’m sure that alone will keep me in purgatory for half an eternity, and justifiably so. We also wore our hair long and grew mustaches sometimes accompanied by sideburns.

I bring this up now, because of the return of the mustache to campus. I never thought I’d see any style from the 70s come back and was happy to jettison that decade for the 80s, but I was also sure about bell bottoms and look what happened. But I have seen bell bottoms return to my campus as well. I’m not sure if they are the same from the 60s, since they look more flared, but these old styles are definitely popular with students today.

Some young men in the university boxing club where I work out have grown mustaches. Nothing fancy or vain, no handlebars or Snidely Whiplashes. They look more mature, and I think back to my mustached self in college. I have to remind myself that I am not a student anymore. Actually, sparring with them is a more direct reminder. I told one, “You know, the last time I was punched in the face by somebody with a mustache was in college. And here I am decades later being punched in the face by somebody with a mustache in college. I feel like I have come full circle.”

So, fashion moves in circles or cycles. However, like history, it doesn’t repeat itself as much as take its inspiration from the past to create new forms in the present. Doesn’t that popular wedding rhyme advise the bride to wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”? There must be a contemporary version of that, possibly in rap.

Of course, it’s not that simple. People have been trying to figure out not just fashion cycles but historical and political ones since the beginning of all three. I would say the success rate is on a par with betting on horses although much less exciting. Still, I have to admit I feel a sense of accomplishment as well as awe when I see these guys with their 70s mustaches. I have managed to last long enough to see the passing of time.

It makes me want to take a nap.

Image credits: feature by Jordan Whitfield; pensive by Dave Stoica. Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. The Brancatelli Blog is a member of The Free Media Alliance, which promotes “alternatives to software, culture, and hardware monopolies.”