Is Bogan the new Hipster?
A young man of 18 years old, who attends one of the hippest schools in Melbourne, Princes Hill Secondary College, ventured into the far outer suburbs of Melbourne on one fateful Friday evening, never to return home the same again. It is there, in the quaint (bogan) little town of Yarra Junction, nestled in the Yarra Valley, that Monty Selwood-Thomas got his first Mullet Mohawk. “My friends call me Swag Lord,” he announces proudly.
Melbourne is without a doubt the hipster capital of Australia. However, what does it mean to be a hipster these days? If this question had been asked a year ago the answer would have been simple; beards, boots and craft beers. Last year, if one were daring enough to walk through a Melbourne inner city suburb, such as Fitzroy or Brunswick, with a mullet and a bare face they would have stood out like a fly on a wedding cake. However, the times are changing, and these days more and more people clad with tracksuit pants and mullets are congregating in and around Melbourne. So, does this mean that Bogan is soon to become the new hipster?
One would never call Dustin Martin, of Richmond Football Club fame, a hipster. Yet his look is becoming all the rage around Melbourne, with more and more men donning the dusty hairstyle by the minute. Jack Burden, 20 years old, claimed he accidentally got the ‘Dusty Mulhawk’ when he asked his best mate to give him a Mohawk that instead somehow revolved into a mix between a Mullet and a Mohawk. “When I first cut my hair, people thought it was hilarious and I also got a lot of ‘my god what have you done?’, but cutting my hair ended up being a good decision,” Jack explained. Despite getting his hair fashioned into a Mulhawk before Richmond had won the grand final and the Dusty boom had began, Jack was sure his new haircut wouldn’t be a bad idea, and luckily for him, it wasn’t.
This new Bogan fad does seem to be primarily affecting men at this present time, because, while women clad with Mohawks and mullets have been occasionally spotted in and around Melbourne, that particular look does not seem to be nearly as popular among the females as it is among the males.
Melbourne based therapist, Jen Selwood, believes the reasons behind this new style revelation is due to the fact that, “men like to push the boundaries. Women have more options and ways to dress themselves up, whereas men are more limited. I believe they use their hair styles and their clothing as a way to express themselves.”
“Bogan never used to be a fashion statement,” Jen explains, “only now is bogan becoming a fashionable way to look.” Jen attended her youngest daughter’s year 12 graduation recently and claimed that the majority of the young men that were graduating on that night had “horrible haircuts,” and that try as she might, she just couldn’t look away.
It seems that there is an increasing population of millennial men in Melbourne that also think the Bogan style is steadily becoming a trend. When questioned about whether the bogan look was indeed coming into flair, Adam Lowes, a fashionista who always keeps up with the latest style developments, rationalised that “It makes sense because hipsters are all rocking mullets and denim jackets with pierced ears these days, so yes there is definitely some bogan culture in there.” “I actually like the mullet Mohawk look, because it’s like, dirty, but it’s hot,” he exclaimed.
This time last year, almost every new bar that opened around Melbourne was targeting hipsters, with their fancy beers, eccentric takes on regular foods and No Hoodie dress codes. However, the majority of the bars that have opened in the last few months haven’t had the same try-hard indie vibe that the previous bars have partaken. For example, Melbourne is now home to a 70's theme karaoke bar, Jukes . Of course one wouldn’t call karaoke completely Bogan, but one certainly wouldn’t call it hipster either. Karaoke has a sort of suburban mum's gone wild vibe and it certainly doesn’t let off the ‘I’m-too-cool-for-you’ vibe that most hipster joints project.
While many people around Melbourne are embracing the Bogan look, there are still some out there who refuse to acknowledge its fashionable credibility. Leon Rozitis, who went through a hipster phase a few years ago but has since retired that look, claims that while he admits that mullets are definitely making a comeback, they “look disgusting and are also very unprofessional.” Leon is always looking very classy in Ralph Lauren and other tasteful brands, and explains that he would call his look, “somewhere in between hipster and professional.” When asked what his thoughts were on getting a mullet himself, Leon emphasised that he would “never ever in a million years” get one. “It makes me ill,” he said.
Leon is an architect working in Carlton and although he is surrounded by hip suburbs and trendy venues, he openly refuses to join in on the Bogan culture. “You couldn’t pay me to get a mullet,” he states profusely, looking as though he might gag. Leon hung up his hipster belt a few years ago when he got a job in a professional office, as he realised he needed to keep his beard short and his hair neat. However, he still frequently experiments with craft beers and funky shirts with tight jeans and boots whenever he can. “Another reason that I got rid of my beard and long hair was because the maintenance of them was just too high, to be hipster like that is too demanding,” Leon explained.
While Jack has since gotten rid of his Dusty hairstyle, Monty (A.K.A Swag Lord) is adamantly sticking to the look, although he now claims that he no longer enjoys his Swag Lord nickname. “They don’t call me Swag Lord like it’s a good thing,” Monty said. “I am very happy with my hair cut though, and I think I will keep it like this for now, if not forever. It’s easy to maintain and do in the mornings and I always look fresh as.”
A few years ago, most Melbournians would never have been caught dead wandering the streets with a mullet, a Mohawk, or dressed down in tracksuit pants and hoodies. However, with the rise of the Bogan style and the Dusty haircut, one can soon expect to see much more of where that came from (probably Yarra Junction).
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