With a shuddering inevitability, Nigel Farage debuted his new career move. As a 70s throwback. Appearing on Russia Today he unveiled a porntache, a two headed droopy caterpillar of a moustache that wasn’t just a metaphor for his points of view but, more shockingly, pretty fashionable.
In 2016, 1970s styles are inescapable. Track suits, gazelle trainers, bold prints, silk shirts and sherpa jackets have all dominated both on the high street and on screen (The Get Down, The Nice Guys and Everybody Wants Some!!). While Jake Gyllenhaal, James Franco, Adrien Brody and the British cycling team have all sported the era’s facial-hair style.
Stylistically, the pornstache came out of a Playboy aesthetic which combined the age of the peacock with a sense of man-of-the-worldliness. Burt Reynolds, the star of Cannonball Run and Smokey and the Bandit, was one of the highest-paid actors of the decade and it was part of his trademark look. For Cosmopolitan, Reynolds got semi-naked, sprawled out on a bearskin rug, chomping on a cigarillo, his caterpillar ’tache peeping out above his cheshire cat’s grin. The moustache wasn’t pencil-thin cartoon-villain (think John Waters’ Little Richard tribute) but unapologetically bulky and robust.
It was iconic at the time, but also a symbol of the old-school masculinity that was on its way out. Post the free-love movement, the ’tache symbolised an ancient take on gender relations and would be later attached to unreconstructed characters who are trapped in their out of touch realities (Mario, Ned Flanders, Ron Burgundy and Borat). With his moustache, Farage may have aligned himself with the latter group but also found himself to be accidentally on trend.
