It's business up front, party in the back.
The infamous mullet hairstyle – the short-in-the-front, long-in-the-back coiffure - was all the rage in the ’80s and very quickly fell out of favour, with fashion magazine Vogue reportedly once describing the mullet as “history’s most divisive hairstyle.”
However, in recent years, the mullet has seen a global resurgence.
British magazine i-D even declared 2020 “the year of the mullet” as the COVID-19 pandemic saw lockdown-weary citizens let their locks flow.
Six years later, and the revival is still happening...
On Saturday, a Danish crowd gathered for the 2026 Mullet Championship, presented on an outdoor stage in central Copenhagen.
There, 12 well-coiffed competitors and more than a thousand spectators celebrated all things mullet.
Organizer Steffen Stiw Weber, a 37-year-old electrician, said the championships, now in their fourth year, began after he had a hair transplant and chose to grow out a mullet.
After realizing he couldn’t compete in a mullet competition in the United States because he wasn’t a US citizen, Weber started his own in Denmark.
Competitors in Saturday’s championships were evaluated on their cuts’ style, uniqueness, overall performance and “mullet moves,” explained judge Bobby Agren. He added: “I like the finesse, the twist, the nostalgia. I like it if it looks ridiculous or maybe ugly in a beautiful way.”
Contestants were given 60 seconds each to perform on stage to showcase their cuts. After every performance, judges held up scorecards to distribute points to the competitors.
Forty-three-year-old construction worker Thomas Berg eventually took home the top prize after wowing judges by frantically jumping on a trampoline while clad in neon green gym wear. He completed his mullet haircut with an orange headband.
“I think it’s just funny. It’s just a big party,” said Berg after collecting his prize. “It’s just nice to be a bit outside the box.”
Numerous mullet competitions are now staged around the world. Belgium hosted the European Mullet Cup last month.
Weber explains the renewed popularity of the cut by saying: “I think in our culture, when everything must be perfect on social media and everything like that, I think that’s why people have to stand out from the crowd.”
