The Return of Turkey's Mustaches

With Istanbul’s Fashion Week just around the corner, the ladies are geared up to catch local expressions of global trends. Meanwhile, with men, one trend has not lost its popularity for several seasons now: the mustache. In fact, the mustache — much more a symbolic line of cultural division than a fashion accessory — has always been a controversial political symbol in Turkey. It is a story worth taking a look at.

In Turkish history, Ottoman men, as Sunni Muslims, usually had shaved heads or closely cropped hair. Particular rank or occupation determined the kind of turban or head covering. Only the “mature” male, a trait that was not always determined by age, but rather by power, could grow a beard. The practice of the Prophet Muhammad also recommended a certain length of beard. Later, secularization and Westernization in the Republican era discouraged the veil and the beard — and even banned them for state officials — because of religious connotations.

So, according to scholar Susan Aykut, in both the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, the regulation of hair practices was “a means of maintaining social order” and “significant in defining the allegiances of Turks to the state.” Both women’s headscarves and men’s facial hair have thus remained politically controversial.

In fact, the symbolism of a particular mustache style is powerful in Turkey, to an extent that the uninitiated foreigner would never guess. For example, an extreme nationalist mustache emerged in the 1970s, a style that reveals the upper lip clearly with drooping sides. According to some, it stands for milliyetçi, or “nationalist,” as the mustache’s shape resembles the letter M. In the same period, the ultranationalist group “Gray Wolves” even used mustache shape to identify their targets for killing: leftists and others associated with them like Alevis, who often wear mustaches dropped at the sides of the mouth. The left-wing Kurds usually prefer straight mustaches, similar to late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s, covering the upper lip. A Sunni Muslim conservative religious mustache is clipped, does not cover the upper lip and does not droop down the sides (just like Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s). On the other hand, a clean-shaved face used to symbolize a connection to the military or no particular political affiliation.