Whether it is handlebar, walrus or chevron, there is an endless range of moustache styles to choose from.

Different styles have fallen in and out of fashion for various reasons, and recently the moustache has had a bit of a renaissance, thanks to Movember.

Take a trip back in time and look at how the auspicious moustache has changed in popularity from the late 1800s to today...

Bushy and bristly

In the late 1800s, a big and bushy moustache was seen by the Victorian society as a symbol of manliness.

As such, most men invested a lot of time and effort into growing their upper lip accessories.

The trend for walrus moustaches followed into the beginning of the 1900s as well.

Handlebar heavy

However, the trend for bushy moustaches soon died down a bit. Thanks to huge leaps in shaving technologies in the 1900s, men were able to style their moustaches with much more ease.

This led to the popularity of lighter styles, such as the iconic handlebar moustache.

Bushier styles were soon shunned for the more delicate 'tache, as the former began to be considered more workman-like than gentile.

Hollywood hair

In the mid-1900s, moustache inspiration came from across the pond: Hollywood.

Big name actors like Laurence Olivier took the clean-cut look even further, rejecting the over-styling of handlebar moustaches and, instead, opting for smaller, perfectly preened looks.

Shaggy protest moustaches

By the Sixties and Seventies, the general trend shifted yet again, moving away from the perfectly-styled look. Instead, young men turned towards shaggier and more unkempt facial hair, with wilder moustaches often being paired with a bushy beard.

This was a generation that was becoming more politically active, and facial hair going against the status quo and making a statement was another manifestation of this.

The sporting obsession

Throughout the 1800s and arguably most of the first half of the 1900s, most men grew a moustache. However, as the 20th century wore on, it fell increasingly out of fashion.

Of course, people still grew them, but their popularity waned.

There was one particular group of men who still loved their moustaches from the 1970s onwards, and that was sportsmen.

No longer was it enough to have a shaggy head of hair, but footballers and cricketers alike were growing some impressive facial accessories, and fuller moustaches grew in popularity again.

The chevron

No homage to the moustache would be complete without a mention of the chevron, and the person who made it famous: Tom Selleck.

A neat but not overly fussy moustache, the chevron was at its most popular in the 1970s and Eighties, helped by the fact that it was a relatively easy style to grow and maintain.

Other famous fans of the chevron include Freddie Mercury and George Clooney.

Barely-there boyband moustaches

Cast your mind back to the 'barely-there' moustache, sported by boybands and other celebs in the Nineties and Noughties.

Long gone is the walrus moustaches of the Victorian era: these were more of a dusting of the upper lip than anything else.

The dawn of Movember

Moustaches have seen a comeback recently, largely thanks to the increasingly popular phenomenon of Movember.

Starting in 2003, Movember calls on men to grow a moustache throughout the month of November. It aims to raise money for a range of men's health issues, including prostate and testicular cancer.

Unlike previous eras, there is no obvious style that triumphs over others. In fact, the broad range of categories you can be judged on in the World Beard & Moustache Championships illustrates this. The categories relating to moustaches are: Natural, Dali, English, Imperial, Hungarian, Musketeer and Fu Manchu.

More often than not, the modern moustache is paired with a beard, but with trends moving as quickly as they do, who knows what is up next for the world of male facial hair?