Tattoos in Australia: A special report into the fashion trend that lasts forever
TATTOOS are getting bigger, brighter and much more common and, like their art, they are here to stay. In the first part of a special series, we look at how attitudes to ink are changing.
IF there was any doubt that tattoos had joined the mainstream of Australian culture, a top Adelaide defence lawyer has put that case to rest.
“We always used to tell clients with tattoos to cover them up for court, but we don’t bother with that any more,” said Lindy Powell, SC, whose job is to convince juries that people accused of being criminals are innocent. Part of that is ensuring they don’t look like criminals and, traditionally, tattoos would be seen to suggest exactly the opposite.
“Everyone’s got them now, so it doesn’t really matter,” she said.
In truth, it’s not quite everyone, but if you take an observant walk around Adelaide or any other Australian city, you could be forgiven for imagining just that. Social studies and marketing research over recent years suggests that one-in-five adult Australians now wears at least one tattoo. Among young women, the rate is thought to be closer to one in four.
Research also indicates these numbers have grown considerably over the past five years, as have the numbers of tattoo studios and artists who have turned their talents to the craft.
According to those artists and their human canvases, there is no clear reason for this other than fashion, driven in the usual way by musicians, Hollywood stars and sporting identities who began publicly showing off their ink a decade or two ago, and now further fuelled by the ease with which images are shared on the internet.
Tattoo technology has also developed markedly, especially in terms of colour. Not so long ago, a splash of red amid lines of blue-grey was as about as bright as body art could get, but now the entire colour spectrum is available in inks so vivid they could almost be from a traditional painter’s palette. Add to that the ease with which designs can be shared and found on the internet and, in a modern, affluent society that puts so much value on fashion and the latest look, the opportunities for individual artistic expression are almost irresistible to many people, particularly the young.
So it’s fashion but, unlike just about any other style fad, it’s effectively permanent. Tattoo removal is easier than it used to be, but no one gets ink they plan to get rid of later, so it’s a commitment to that latest look for the rest of one’s life.
Despite their popularity, tattoos can still be seen as “edgy”, and they can still have some shock value, but professor of psychology Marika Tiggemann, a researcher in body image at Flinders University, says perceptions of tattooed people are changing considerably.
“They used to be a sign of rebellion or deviancy. Now they are everywhere, so they are clearly not,” she said.
“Most of the time it’s just a way to express themselves ... it’s seen as something that is cool. (A heavily tattooed person) can be seen as someone who is confident.”
But it’s also about being an individual, because even if everyone has a tattoo, the artwork itself can still be a one-off.
“People need to be the same as others, but we they also need to feel unique,” said Professor Tiggeman, who also pointed out that many women now shy away from ear piercings because they have become so common that not having them is “less ordinary”.
Tattoos also seem to fire some form of psychological addiction.
At the Wolf & Wren Tattoo Collective, a St Peters studio that provides workspace to a wide variety of artists, proprietor Carly Sanders is covered in spectacular, brightly coloured tattoos, but eight years ago she had none.
My first tattoo ... I just got it because I was running the studio ... of course one of the questions was ‘how does it feel’ and I was lying because I had no tattoos and no concept of how it felt, so I thought I’d better get one ... and we kind of just went from there,” she said.
She believes that artists and their subjects are also heavily attracted to the changing face of the industry, which once was the domain of bikies and other nefarious types.
“I find the kind of people that gravitate towards tattooing these days ... even ten years ago it was a very bikie-dominated field, but now it’s all about the art,” she said.
But is there a particular kind of person who gets a tattoo?
“We get a lovely cross-section, roughly 50-50 male and female,” Carly said.
“I think the oldest lady we’ve tattooed was 85. She was beautiful, her daughter had died of breast cancer and she wanted the little pink breast cancer ribbon.
“That’s the part I love about the job. It gives me the warm fuzzies when you can do a beautiful memorial piece .... we get a few ladies who had breast cancer and double mastectomies who want to cover up there scars and that’s a really good and beautiful thing if you can change somebody’s life like that.
“I think tattoos have a bit of a magic about them, they can change the way you see yourself when you look in the mirror and if you can put a positive spin on somebody’s life and make them feel confident and happy when they see themselves in the mirror, I think that’s a wonderful thing.
“For me, it’s all a big front. I’m naturally a shy person and socially anxious and awkward ... I think a lot of people get tattoos for other people to see them, but for me ... I only get tattooed by people that I love, so if I’m having a sad day or I don’t feel very good about myself I can look in the mirror and I have all these beautiful drawings from people that I love.”
But Carly says the reactions of the people who see her tattoos can be surprising, and a little strange.
“People will just come up and grab my arm. In Adelaide, it’s usually older, middle-aged ladies that want to come up and stroke me ... and ask me questions about the tattoos out of genuine curiosity. In Asia there was a lady who pulled my underwear off in the markets to have a look.
“Men are very respectful, which is interesting. They will make sure they make eye contact and go ‘beautiful’ or ‘lovely’ or maybe blow you a kiss. Women are very much hands on, there’s no filter. People tend to forget their manners and lose their minds a little bit when they see something different to what they are used to looking at.
“It take a little bit of getting used to, being on the other end of it. I would never want to leave people with a bad impression of someone who’s heavily tattooed, so I try to be super polite and welcoming and answer whatever questions they have, but sometimes I feel a little bit like a freak-show exhibit.”
On a recent visit to Adelaide, London tattoo artist Nikole Lowe, a star of reality TV show London Ink, met up with two similarly heavily tattooed friends and we asked all three about this.
Nikole said that “years ago, walking down the street, people would make bad comments, but now it’s the opposite, people just say nice things to you”. But she also has experienced unusual attention.
“People think that they’ve got the right to touch you, which is kind of invasive. It makes people react differently, for sure,” she said.
“I went to Vietnam and I found that really weird. People, particularly men, would point and yell at me and get their friends to look at you. it was really uncomfortable. Different cultures see it differently.”
Friend Micaela Georgiou, a creative professional, new mum and daughter of well-known Unley fashion designers George and Pasqualina Georgiou, has also had mostly positive responses, but remembers one very unexpected confrontation while visiting New Zealand.
“I was in a museum ... and an older couple approached me and told me how horrified they were and disgusted. They said they were appalled at the sight of me walking around in a museum, and I was really, really quite upset.
“It was quite intense and I was just in shock that they cared so much. I felt like they went to such an effort to tell me how disapproving they were. It did kind of hurt, even though they were complete strangers.”
Although emotional responses to tattoos have always varied, one constant has been the belief that they keep people from getting employment.
Nikole says that in London “I think it helps getting a job ... it used to be if you had tattoos on your hands or neck you couldn’t get a job, now it’s the opposite. People are more willing to hire you because it looks cool.”
Whether that’s true in Adelaide is not clear, but it does seem that tattoos are not the job blocker they used to be.
Andrew Sullivan, of Hender recruiting, says that “people’s perceptions have changed”.
“People without tattoos have probably almost become the minority now,” he said.
“Certainly they are becoming more acceptable ... there are TV shows about tattoos now.”
“It’s like ear rings used to be, or hair colours, or maybe people with funky hairstyles, such as a mohawk. There’s always something.”
It is illegal for most employers to deny a candidate on the grounds of their tattoos, and Mr Hender said it would make no sense to “limit the pool” of candidates, although jobs in which presentation is important can be the exception.
Some employers make it clear that visible tattoos are not acceptable,” Mr Hender said.
“Some airlines, for instance, won’t hire people with tattoos.”
Click here to read Part II in this series: Sex and sleaze, plus what should a parent think?