This article originally appeared in the November 2015 issue of Louisville Magazine.
To subscribe to Louisville Magazine, please click here [4].
Patrick Fette leaned forward, inched his face closer to the judges, eye-level. This would be the third and last time the judges at the 2015 Just for Men-sponsored World Beard & Moustache Championships would inspect Fette’s English ’stache. He had worked hard to perfect his four-year-old whiskers: 14 inches across tip-to-straight-out-tip. Trimmed the mustache down a couple inches so it wouldn’t sag. Rid it of stray hairs. Made sure to buy a fresh tube of Clubman’s Moustache Wax before the competition, applied it, then added a layer of the crazy-sticky Firehouse wax on top for extra hold.
The 29-year-old search-engine evaluator completed his look with a Downton Abbey-esque costume: white button-up, white vest, black tux (unlike the Civil War generals who inspired his facial-hair obsession). Last month, Fette was the only Louisvillian among the 300 competitors in Austria for the competition. (There were many mustachioed and bearded categories. “I can’t grow a beard,” Fette says.) None of his dudes in the Derby City Whisker Club — with an active 20 or so members meeting monthly at Za’s, talking all things mustaches and beards and their July charity event, Whiskermania — could cross countries, but they cheered from home. Fette had won many competitions before.
One last look, and the judges’ Olympic-style score cards went up: five 10s, a nine and an eight, highest and lowest scores dropped: 49/50. Damn near perfect. First place, and an Alps-inspired quartz trophy, a pat to the heart, a giant hand-wave, and mouthing to the judges, unsure of the languages they spoke: “Thank you.”
This article originally appeared in the November 2015 issue of Louisville Magazine.
To subscribe to Louisville Magazine, please click here [4].
Photo by Lain Crockart