By Gabriella Payne
It seems that the quintessential Aussie hair cut, the classic mullet, is slowly but surely coming back into fashion, and one Nar Nar Goon local’s luscious locks have received national attention recently.
Angie Atkinson, a “born and bred” Nar Nar Goonian, is proud to be putting her hometown on the map after being nominated as a finalist in the ‘2021 Australia’s fiercest bloody mullet competition’, run by the NT News.
“I think we’re pretty famous for our name,” Angie said, in reference to her hometown.
“So we may as well be famous for our mullets too.”
Angie has been chosen as one of the fifty best mullet wearing entrants from around the country, and when you see her show-stopping hairstyle, there’s no question why.
What started out as a big change in hairstyle for a fundraising cause has now become a part of who Angie is and she is proud of her luscious locks – and it seems to run in the family.
“I’ve actually got a photo of my Mum and Dad from when they were around my age, and they had matching mullets,” Angie said.
“So I come from top quality mullet stock.”
While her parents were no longer sporting mullets, Angie said that it had been a great change for her not only physically but in other aspects as well.
“I tell everyone this, but having my mullet has sent my confidence through the roof,” she said.
“I think all ages, all genders – anyone can have a mullet.
One of my really close girlfriends, Courtney, her daughter is now growing a mullet.
She wants one, and she’s nine,” Angie said.
“She’s like, ‘I want to be like Aunty Ang! I want to rock a mullet!’ and I was like, ’yes girl, get it!’”
Angie said that a few friends had encouraged her to enter the competition, but she had “sort of forgotten about it” until she was informed by the Gazette.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“It’s so funny because a lot of my mates have mullets, but they’re all boys and they’re all truck drivers, so the real stereotypical mullet-wearing individual – and here I am just like, here we go!”
Angie decided to make the big chop in September 2020, when the Black Dog Institute, a not-for-profit mental health charity, ran their ‘mullets for mental health’ campaign.
“I’ve always toyed with the idea of having a mullet and the Black Dog Institute is a cause pretty close to my heart,” she said.
“So I was like, well, this is it – it’s my time to shine.”
Despite setting a fundraising goal of $500, Angie managed to raise over $1,000 for the charity, and in the process, gained her ‘business in the front, party in the back’ signature look.
“I ended up raising about $1120, so I completely smashed my target and got a sick mullet out of it!”
In her work as a bartender at the “Nooj” aka, the Noojee pub, Angie said that she receives a lot of positive feedback for her unmissable hairstyle.
“I get a lot of compliments up there (at work),” she said.
“A lot of people come in with mullets and I’m always like, well, sorry, my mullet’s better.”
Angie said that she wanted to make a special shout out to her mates, the “swamp fam” for always supporting her in her mullet-wearing journey.
Although it requires regular maintenance, Angie said she has no plans of cutting her mullet off anytime soon and encouraged anyone who had access to the competition’s voting site (which is run via NT News) to swing her a vote.
“It’s a young thing, our parents all had mullets at our ages, so it’s all making a comeback, isn’t it?” she said.
“It’s back in fashion, and I don’t think it ever should have left.”
