Saturday, May 11, will be the 120th anniversary of the birth of Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. The artist is one of the few who even today is recognized instantly in photographs, mainly because of his mustache, which may be described as Surrealist on its own. Dalí began wearing facial hair as a young man, although it was a thin, garden variety mustache until his career took off. Then it grew year by year as a branding exercise, until it became iconic. Today, just two strokes of a pen evokes Dalí's image in the minds of all who see it, so that branding exercise proved as durable as the Nike swoosh or the McDonald's arches.
In 1955, Dalí gave an interview with Malcolm Muggeridge for the BBC show Panorama. The intent was to discuss Dalí's art, but Muggeridge was so intrigued by seeing Dalí's long, upturned mustache in person that they had to talk about it first. Dalí was very much open to revealing his mustache secrets, including the fact that he cleaned it at night and let the long ends hang down while he slept. Read how Dalí took care of his iconic mustache and what it meant to him at BBC Culture. -via Damn Interesting
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
