"My moustache is… very pointed, very aggressive." Playful and provocative, Salvador Dalí's moustache was more than mere facial hair but a bold artistic statement. In an exclusive BBC interview the Surrealist artist shared the secret behind the most famous moustache in the world.
In 1955, Spanish artist Salvador Dalí – who was born this week 120 years ago – sat down with veteran broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge on the BBC's Panorama, and spoke about the most potent symbol of his artistic identity – his moustache.
Muggeridge conceded that he should really be asking the famed Surrealist about the bizarre dreamlike images that made his name, but the sight of Dalí's flamboyantly lustrous whiskers proved irresistible to him.
What followed, for a BBC programme known for its investigative current affairs documentaries, was a fittingly surreal interview.
"The first question that I want to put to you – it really ought to be about modern art but I can't help it – there is some delicious frivolity in you that makes me ask it – how did you manage to produce those magnificent moustaches?" said Muggeridge.
"In the beginning of this moustache, I used one very natural product," replied Dalí. "Dates, you know the fruit? In the last moment of dinner, I not clean my finger and I put a little in my moustache and it remains for all afternoon very efficiently.
"But now I use one real product, very good, [found] in the Place Vendôme, Hungarian wax Pinaud [a French brand that has been going since 1810]. It's a very well-known wax already. Proust, Marcel Proust [the French novelist], uses the same."
"Yes, but his was a little pointed one, wasn't it," replied Muggeridge, warming to the subject. "It didn't have a splendid upturn like yours."
"He used this wax but he used it in another manner or another mode in one depressing… way. A little depressing and melancholic. My moustache contrarily is very gay, very pointed, very aggressive."
More like this:
Muggeridge ploughed on, pressing the artist for more details on his gravity-defying facial hair, discovering the artist cleaned it every evening – allowing it to become soft and droop down overnight – the time it took to get ready in the morning – a brisk three minutes – and how his moustache served as a practical tool for his "inspiration".
Muggeridge was not alone in being captivated by the artist's exuberantly bold whiskers. Synonymous with the artist himself, Dalí's cartoonishly waxed moustache had become a thing of legend.
Dalí had sported a hirsute upper lip since the 1930s, and initially it was a relatively modest affair based on a look popularised at the time by US actor Adolphe Menjou. But as the years progressed, the artist's moustache, "like the power of my imagination, continued to grow," as Dalí would later put it in a photo book dedicated to his facial hair in 1954.
By the 1940s, he was growing and styling his whiskers to increasingly dramatic heights, their upturned ends reminiscent of another earlier Spanish painter, Diego Velázquez. Dalí's distinctive facial hair served as a bold statement of intent, embodying rebellion, creativity, irreverence, individuality and absurdity.
"I can think of few other artists who pursued fame and fortune as aggressively as Salvador Dalí. He actively turned himself into a brand, shamelessly promoting himself through any means necessary," said art historian David Dibosa in the documentary Art on the BBC in 2022.
"And as with any brand, to be truly successful, you need a logo that's instantly recognisable."
Whether curled into a figure eight, bedecked by flowers or tied in a bow, his moustache became as carefully crafted as his public image. Its exaggerated curves, like his paintings, confronted viewers with the absurd, challenging them to question convention and their own reality.
It served to solidify his image in the public's mind, a dramatic visual cue for the eccentric, theatrical and irreverent spirit that defined Dalí's artistic persona.
In History
In History is a series which uses the BBC's unique audio and video archive to explore historical events that still resonate today.
He would, at times, use his moustache as a paintbrush, or feature it in paintings, including Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon, further blurring the boundary between art and life, serious and comedic, the real and surreal.
And as artistic brands go it has proved remarkably durable. Its surreal silhouette has adorned everything from jewellery to coffee mugs, and was even painted on a Delta Air Lines 757 plane in 2010. The same year, a poll for Movember, an annual event for growing facial hair, found it to be the most famous moustache of all time.
In a suitably surreal epilogue, which illustrates his playful motif's staying power, when Dalí's body was exhumed for a paternity test in 2017, almost three decades after his death in 1989, his whiskers were still entirely intact, looking like clock hands reading 10.10.
"I was eager to see him, and I was absolutely stunned," Narcis Bardalet, who had been in charge of embalming Dalí's body, told Spain's RAC1 radio station at the time.
"It was like a miracle... his moustache appeared at 10 past 10 exactly."
--
For more stories and never-before-published radio scripts to your inbox, sign up to the In History newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week
For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
How does King Charles III's Coronation year compare to that of his mother?
Fifty years ago, on April 25, 1974, a Eurovision song gave the signal for a military coup.
How one day in 1963 changed history forever and created a piece of America in the UK.
700 years after his death, Marco Polo's travellogue is full of wonder but also 'hard to believe' in some parts.
How Putin 'dreamed of being the Russian version of James Bond'.
Has Amelia Earhart's plane really been found? Here are the key things to know.
How did this US state become the first government in the entire English-speaking world to ban the death penalty?
Emeline Nsingi Nkosi heads into Berlin's underground U-Bahn system to visit the disused war bunkers.
The Koh-i-Noor diamond is arguably one of the most famous and controversial jewels in the world.
In 1967 residents of a US-Mexico border town discovered they weren't Mexican citizens but were actually American.
Mr Potato Head, slinky, water balloon, Super Soaker, Monopoly. You know them. But do you know their origin story?
Join Istanbul-based poet and writer Pelin Batu as she explores a museum bursting with history, myth and legend.
The Napoleon Complex - aka 'small man syndrome' - suggests short men are overly aggressive. But is it true?
Carrots help you see in the dark, right? Wrong, you've actually been swallowing WW2 propaganda.
A new study suggests a Viking queen in Denmark may have been more important than kings.
Partially blind, he vows to continue until he can no longer see.
The ancient site of Megiddo is the biblical setting for a final battle between the forces of good and evil.
Artemisia Gentileschi: Revealing the true beauty of a censored painting.
The treasure of Caldas de Reis is one of the largest hoards of prehistoric gold ever found in Europe.
Hysteria about satanic rituals is arguably the ultimate human conspiracy theory - and it has truly weird origins.
Scientists are racing to trace deep ocean species before they are lost, with the help of photographers who have a taste for danger.
The display includes some 18,000 paper doves suspended on ribbons from the cathedral's nave.
Australia's Mona asked a court to reverse its ruling that allowed men inside a women's only space.
Fifty years after Liliana Cavani's provocative and disturbing film The Night Porter was released to widespread critical disgust, how have views of it changed?
The Yuturi Warmi, an Ecuadorian patrol group, vowed to protect their community's land in the Amazon Rainforest from pollution of extractive industries.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Bradley Blankenship
Tarik Cyril Amar
Michael Kwet
visit website
