Lauren Koller’s website mulletwigs.com has taken a backseat since our interview in 2007.
By Diccon Hyatt
The year was 2007. The iPhone was an overpriced novelty. Movies like Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, Spider Man 3 and Harry Potter 5 were dominating box offices. And everyone wanted a mullet wig.
The mullet, a hairstyle favored by Billy Ray Cyrus, John Stamos and Mel Gibson in the 1980s, had (fairly or not) long since become a visual shorthand for being the coif of choice for slack-jawed rustics. Crudely chopped in the front, flowing wildly in the back, it instantly communicated a defiance of bourgeois tastes.
One Hamilton resident had the foresight to turn mullet mockery into a business. Mercer County Community College student Lauren Koller, along with other members of her family, founded the website mulletwigs.com, selling for $19.99 the ability to not only have a mullet, but more importantly, the ability to remove it at will.
“I guess it’s a little outdated to have permanently, but it’s a lot of fun to have for a night or two,” Koller told the Hamilton Post in June 2007. “My brother had a mullet when he was younger.”
Koller claimed never to have had a mullet herself, yet she seemed well-versed in the hairstyle’s diversity. Her website sold wigs in such styles as The Lansdcaper, the Trash, The Class of 1987 and the Female Mullet. In May 2007, mulletwigs.com won third place in the Rothman Institute’s 2007 New Jersey Entrepreneurial contest.
So, what became of Mulletwigs after our story in July 2007? It turns out that mulletwigs.com, much like the mullet itself, fell upon hard times. Koller never did become a hockey hair millionaire.
“Unfortunately, with family obligations, real full-time jobs, and life, Mullet Wigs has taken a back seat since the interview,” she said in an email last month. “The family business is now a fun tale of the past and a good laugh at gatherings. Life after mullet wigs is great—my brother is married with a beautiful little boy who is now 7, and I bought a house with my boyfriend and am working full time at a great job in the Pharma world. Mullet Wigs will always be a great part of our lives and maybe will resurface one day if we hit the lottery, LOL.”
