Watch out for the manly moustache

It’s not just Salman in Dabangg. The moustache has found favour with the edgiest fashion labels across the US, UK and India.
Middle-class South Indian blokes with pushbroom moustaches would smile if they saw what famed shoe designer Nicholas Kirkwood unveiled at London Fashion Week as part of his autumn/winter 2011-12 collection. Leather heels set off by a goat fur tuft that resembled an ankle-skimming moustache.Moustaches are having a high fashion moment. And judging from lookbooks, it seems that the Imperial has beaten the Handlebar, Mouth-brow and Horse shoe.
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum’s online store is urging you to shell out £8.90 to “bring out the modern-day dandy in you and cut a dash” with a moustache brooch pinned to your lapel. UK’s online-only fashion store Asos’ r o u n d - neck tees with the m e t a l l i c moustache print are out of stock. Designer label Tatty Devine has lent the traditional tailor’s moustache a contemporary twist, in handvarnished walnut wood, to create a wacky necklace. Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine, the team behind the label, say in an interview over email from London, “The moustache has always been an iconic symbol. We were inspired by the way people fiddle with their necklaces, pulling them up to their lips. Besides, the trend of facial hair is big among guys right now. It could signal the rise of geek chic.”
Across the Atlantic, for LA-based jewellery designer Rachael White, one of the first to have seen the potential of the moustache to steer a cultural movement, it was artist Marcel Duchamp’s painting L.H.O.O.Q (he drew a moustache on Mona Lisa), that provided inspiration for her costume jewellery and wax candles. French designer textiles brand La Cerise sur la Gateau believes whiskers are wonderful on pillows. Their quirky bed linen and moustached pillows are on sale at London’s Selfridges. Back home in Bengaluru, graphic artist Parul Kanodia creates mooch cushion covers, bookmarks, USB pods and hangers that retail under her one year-old label, Mooch Nahi Toh Kuch Nai.
“We have played with moustaches through characters we created. Lovely Singh, Dakoo Dholakia, Parmeshwar Pillai and Daroga Sahib, all sport mucchis, but in varied styles,” says the 25-year-old. And the sales figures prove the point. When Anckur Patodia of tee brand Chimp introduced the Shri Mucchad Singh T-shirt design for kids, he didn’t think it would be a sell-out. “We’ve sold hundreds of them.” No Nasties, an organic, Fair Tradecertified T-shirt company co-founded by Apurva Kothari, pays a tribute to the meterlong Rajasthani moustache on a line of tees. “That stache is so long, it ends at Tatty Devine necklace the back of the T-shirt!” says Kothari. And that makes Shahid Datawala one happy man. The Mumbai-based photographer and designer who sports a Handlebar himself, is putting together a book of photographs of Indian men sporting a baffling range of moustache styles. “For me, the mooch is my identity, it’s a design statement. Globally, it’s symbolic of male strength,” he says.
New York-based designer Jennifer Ng and Eddie Tsai launched The Moustache Tie Clip Project in June last year on kickstarter.com, an online platform that helps upstarts raise funds for their projects, and hit their goal of $3,000 within two months. Having thought up the idea at a moustache-theme party, the two launched a line of silver, gold and gunmetal tie clips after noticing a dearth of contemporary designers in NY stores. And Their clip doesn’t need you to be male. Twenty-eight-year-old Ng often wears it as a brooch on her jackets.
Tsai hopes to eventually become part of Movember (www.movember.com), an annual charity event held during the month of November, when men grow (and women support) a moustache to raise awareness and funds for cancers afflicting men. The charity is all set, starting this year, to receive net profits from the sale of The Moustache Calendar, an annual fine art production that originally began in 2004 as a crazy idea dreamt up by two college roommates who needed to raise money for airfare to Hawaii.
Matthew Cavallaro, collaborator on this year’s calendar, says, “Throughout history, the moustache has been a symbol of empowerment for men. We wanted to celebrate the legacy of the moustache in design, fashion, and adventure. The calendar walks a thin line between pop art and fine art. We’re making some bold statements about how relevant we believe it should be in popular culture, while obviously being a bit tongue-in- cheek.”
“We were inspired by the way people fiddle with their necklaces, pulling them up to their lips. Besides, the trend of facial hair is big among guys right now. It could signal the rise of geek chic"
— Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine of jewellery brand Tatty Devine
“Lovely Singh, Dakoo Dholakia, Parmeshwar Pillai and Daroga Sahib all sport the mooch, but in varied styles"
— Parul Kanodia, Bengaluru-based graphic artist behind the label, Mooch Nahi Toh Kuch Nahi