What do punks, Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block and Ella from Love Island all have in common? The rat tail might not seem the most fashion-forward do, but the style is following in the footsteps of its fellow Aussie mullet. Earlier this year, Gossip Girl actor Evan Mock swapped his recognisable pink buzz cut for a jet-black rat tail at fashion week, while The Weeknd is literally referred to as the “rat tail club guy” in The Idol.
A distant-cousin from the more conventional face-framing baby braids, sported by the likes of Bella Hadid, the cool girls of TikTok are donning long braided rat tails too, home-grown or store bought. 19-year-old Polly Byatt, who has over 100,000 TikTok followers, uses clip-in extensions she bought for “less than £1” to get her rat tail look with her bob. “They’re not very good quality, the ends of them are so dry now because I wear them everywhere. I’ve worn them on nights out and obviously you get sweaty and stuff but I just love them,” she says.
Polly’s “proper ratty rat tails” were inspired by another girl she saw online wearing the look and were purchased ahead of her Vivienne Westwood-themed birthday party in June, which later went viral on TikTok. Another video Polly shared of her outfits of the week, to a Bjork audio, features the rat tails in each clip. With over 800,000 views, she says the comments were filled with people asking if they’re real and where they can buy similar.
Rachael Gibson, who runs The Hair Historian, explains that although rat tails have throughout ancient and modern history been worn by “quite macho men,” the current take on the trend allows people to subvert that aspect and even “make it quite pretty.”
Case in point: Polly says that despite feeling naked without her own two cascading tails, the OG image of a rat tail feels different. “It does make me giggle a little bit,” she says. “You think of guys from America with mullets and a teeny tiny rat tail coming out the back and they probably have a denim vest jacket on. That’s what I think of when I think of a proper rat tail.” In HBO’s The Idol, The Weeknd’s character Tedros triggers warnings to “never trust a dude with a rat tail” and might just be the sleaziest guy on screen this year. Granted, his behaviour doesn’t help, but neither did his hair.
“I just think girls are sick. I feel like girls could take anything and make it cool and I think they are cool,” explains Polly on how the trend is changing views of the rat tails.
Skipping the cliche comparisons to Marmite, the allure of the rat tail is exactly its ability to polarise, something that the punks of the 80s wearing the style welcomed. “It’s wanting to do these outsider things that are very anti-fashion and that are kind of ugly, but purposefully ugly, so you’re kind of doing things that are confrontational,” says Rachael.
23-year-old Jodie has had her two braided rat tails for two years, after she cut the rest of her hair into a mullet during a classic post-breakup makeover. A video she shared online of her “main character” hair gained over one million views. She says she sees her hair the same as her art: “If everyone loves it, then I’m almost not doing it right,” she says. “I quite like making people question what they see and if people are questioning whether they like it or not, you’re kind of still being remembered and you’re still getting people’s minds working. I think we need more of that in our society.”
Jodie says about 20% of the reactions to her hair on TikTok are negative and she often gets older people asking why she’s got short hair if she’s a girl. “I quite like that because it’s questioning, why do you have that mentality of just because I’ve got short hair, does that really mean guy? Does that really mean a girl?” she adds.
It wasn’t until the late 80s that the rat tail became such a polarising, outsider look and became associated with working-class people, especially in Australia and America. In 1990, a Texas student was exiled from his public school for refusing to cut his rat tail but four decades on those classist stereotypes are still present. Just last year, a post in the popular r/Australia Subreddit asked if mullets and rat tails are truly a sign of “low class”. Although the mullet got away somewhat unscathed, the rat tail didn’t. “For rat tails, I think ‘he probably likes ice [popular street drug] and underage girls’,” posited one anonymous user.
“You have to balance this fine line between reclaiming a hairstyle and taking ownership of it,” says Rachael. “If you’re a pretty girl who chooses to reappropriate a hairstyle and everyone thinks you’re really cool and imaginative for doing it versus a teenage kid in Australia who’s being stereotyped as a drug addict just because of how you wear your hair, it’s pretty messed up.” She however adds that it’s hard to get in too deep with the politics of a rat tail, compared to other cases of more severe appropriation, especially race-related hairstyles.
Although living in the bubble that is TikTok or a metropolitan city might have you thinking otherwise when it comes to unconventional and thought-provoking styles like the rat tail or mullet, their adoption still connotes elements of bravery and outsiderness. Online and in big cities, explains Rachael, “lots of girls do lots of weird stuff and everyone just thinks they’re cool but the reality is if you’re living somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and you’re doing this rat tail hair, people are going to think it’s a bit outsider.”
Being brave with our hair styling choices, however, is something that the beauty industry has seen a rise of in recent years. Hairstylist Lulu Richards of London’s Woolf Kings says she regularly cuts rat tails and finds that there’s a wider variety of people asking for the cut now, in both age and gender. As with most of our habits, Lulu cites Covid as a potential cause: “Everyone just wanted to do everything, because we had the mentality of ‘oh, we could all die tomorrow,’ because we’ve been locked up for so long and everyone just really wanted to let loose and try things they’ve always wanted to try.”
“We’ve had so many years of such perfectionist beauty girls wanting to have this Instagram look especially with hair and it’s always just really beautiful, perfect hairstyles and actually this is such a move away from that because it’s so weird and people don’t like it and it does divide people. That’s just way more interesting. People would rather look interesting,” agrees Rachael.
Ironically, it’s this widespread desire for individuality through hair that could make the rat tail continue to boom. Jodie adds crystals to her two braids and weaves threads throughout to give it more of a hippie look that fits her style. Polly says she selects miniature items and badges from around her room with her friends to add to hers. Now, some of her friends are even ordering their own extensions to try too. “There’s no better way of doing that than attaching weird things to your rat tail.” says Rachael. We take it as gospel. Long live rat tail summer.