Despite Being The Biggest Trend, North Korea Is Banning The Mullet | Men's Health Magazine Australia

Despite Being The Biggest Trend, North Korea Is Banning The Mullet

It’s adios to the hairstyle that’s spawned a legion of loyal followers.
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You need only take a stroll down to your local pub to see proof that the mullet has returned. Once a hairstyle deemed so outrageous that those sporting it should be forced to wear a hat so as to avert the gaze of the public away from the atrocity, it seems style is, after all, cyclical. What we hoped might never return has reared its head and this time, it seems the mullet isn’t going anywhere. 

For the unfamiliar (read: those too young to have first witnessed the mullet), the mullet is categorised by a look that is cut trim in the front and left to flow in the back. Wearers can sport the mullet however they see fit, whether they want it textured, unkempt, wild, or take things up a notch with the ole “Business in the front, Party in the back” manifesto. 

Though it may have all started somewhat ironically, it seems as far as hairstyles go, the fade has been replaced with a style previously sported by the likes of Joe Exotic. Now, even Miley Cyrus is wearing a mullet and making it look good. Once popular in the Seventies and Eighties thanks to the likes of David Bowie, George Clooney and Billy Ray Cyrus, even fashion’s biggest designers are sending their models down the runway sporting the cut. 

That the mullet is the trend of the moment is certain, but as far as North Korea is concerned, they aren’t having it. Kim Jong-un has banned mullets and honestly, we’re not sure if this is a blessing or a curse? As well as the hairstyle, skinny jeans and nose piercings are also banned as the leader becomes increasingly worried about the influence of the “capitalistic lifestyle of the decadent West,” according to The Express. 

A nation-wide newspaper called the Rodong Sinmum, which happens to be run by Jong-un’s political party, explains that the country could “collapse like a damp wall regardless of its defence power if we do not hold onto our own lifestyle.”

Ripped and skinny jeans, t-shirts with slogans on them and lip piercings are just some of the other banned fashion looks to emerge from North Korea and if all that wasn’t sad enough, pop sensations BTS and Blackpink are basically banned from North Korea, too. 

By Jessica Campbell

Jess is a storyteller committed to sharing the human stories that lie at the heart of sport.

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