Tuesday 26 June 2012

Tattoos and trends

Jean Paul Gaultier's third release as part of his latest designs for Diet Coke - he's their Creative Director - is all over the news this morning. Think snakes, tribal markings and the suggestion of piercing but on a bottle. 
Make up your mind on fashiongonerogue.com or have a look here:





While Monsieur Gaultier is all about le shock, I'm not convinced if tattoos really have the power to make us gasp any more. Perhaps he just wants us to think about keeping our bodies beautiful and plan our next etchings while we sip on a diet drink?


A decade ago, post rave, very post goth and extremely post punk, you were unlikely to see your barista with a full sleeve or chat to a teenager about their next inking. In 2012, especially in the big cities, once the sun comes out it's possible to carbon date certain people according to their tat style.


Barbed wire/celtic design - originally a punk fave, barbed wire is still remarkably popular with porn stars and their fans. Celtic etchings are a holiday/stag-do fave as they're easy to do from a stencil. However woe betide you if you've accidentally judged a druid's intricate marking as some sort of Marbella special:


Image of a celtic tattoo design in the shape of a flower
via vectorportal
50s/kitsch/cartoon designs - PIn-ups, ice-cream colours, stylised roses, the ace of hearts are the choice of this generation. While the content may be varied, it's a certain rockabilly style which has grown in favour of the last five years or so:


Woman with 50s tattoos
via sometimes_sam
So where do we go from here? Will I be remarking on the prevalence of the baristas' full face tattoos in five years time? I hope so! Love to see them try this in one of the Ibiza joints:


Rick Genest Zombie Boy looking upwards
via zingwong









1 comment:

  1. Love it or not lots of ppl seem to be intrigued by body art, so seems to be good marketing strat.

    http://urbancandy.typepad.com
    http://facebook.com/urbancandyblog.com

    ReplyDelete