The Big Smoke

At Flamin’ Eight tattoo studio in Camden, a young woman shuffles in and sheepishly holds up her vest. Her lower back has a mean-looking heart scratched into it in wobbly blue ink. ‘It’s crap, innit?’ she says resignedly. ‘Can you do anything with it?’ Owner of the business and well-known artist Naresh Bhana looks unsurprised at the botch job. ‘Well,’ he says – with the air of one who’s answered this question countless times – ‘I suppose you could have some darker hearts there, but you’re going to have to go bigger’.
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Tattoos are not for the thin-skinned. From the pale flesh of the highest royalty to that of the dirtiest ruffian in the gutter, the tattoo has unified and divided people since earliest human consciousness. In the twenty-first century its visual power is more potent than ever, with tattoo studios multiplying, particularly in areas like Camden and Soho, and tattooists increasingly lauded as serious artists, with weighty coffee-table books featuring their work. Each era has had its own tattoo stereotype: the bilge-mouthed sailor with his rough-hewn anchor and sweetheart’s name on a bulging, Popeye-esque bicep; the Brit wolfing down a full English on the Costa del Sol, St George and the dragon battling across his sun-scorched back. These days it’s pop stars and footballers etched with exotic (and occasionally misspelled) calligraphy.

Getting in with the ink crowd

Throughout history, groups as diverse as Maoris, Egyptian priestesses , and the Japanese criminal fraternity, the Yakuza, have adopted the tattoo as a form of self-expression, but others have had their tattoos imposed. The Greeks and Romans marked their slaves; in eighteenth-century Japan, tattooing was a form of punishment; and to many older generation Japanese they are still synonymous with criminality. Most strikingly for our generation, the Nazis branded concentration camp prisoners with a dehumanising number.

Commenting on the different types of tattooing, Copenhagen-born, London-based artist Dan Gold describes it as ‘an art form that has evolved since humankind did’. It’s thought that tattooing – that is, injecting ink beneath the epidermis so that it doesn’t disappear as skin is renewed – has been around for at least 5,000 years, and possibly as long as 10,000. The word ‘tattoo’ has two possible origins: the Polynesian word ‘ta’, which means ‘to strike something’ and the more obvious Tahitian word ‘tatau’, which is ‘to mark something’. The earliest tattoos were thought to be accidental – the ancient world’s equivalent of the kid at the back of a classroom armed with a pair of compasses and ink. Old ash from a fire getting into a wound would have left a crude but permanent mark. In the British Isles, around 400BC, warriors were inspired by this to use a distinctive blue dye to permanently decorate the skin.

Pot luck: inks on the shelf of a tattoo artist's studio

The practice really took off centuries later, when explorers exhibited heavily decorated Polynesians at English fairs. The tradition of tattooing among the lower decks of the Royal Navy and merchant fleets followed, and by the mid-eighteenth century most ports had a tattoo parlour. Then in 1862 the Prince of Wales (later to become King Edward VII) started a craze among the aristocracy by succumbing to the needle himself (The Cross of Jerusalem). He was not the only royal to indulge: Harold II before him and George V after him (‘Edith and England’ above his heart) also had tattoos. Nor was the fairer sex left out: Winston Churchill’s mother apparently sported a snake around her wrist (in addition to – and no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you – her allegedly pierced nipples).

Yet by the mid- twentieth century, tattooing was considered taboo by ‘decent folk’. Smartly suited-and-booted Louis Molloy has been in the business for 26 years. When he started out in the 1970s, aged 18, tattooing was a subculture you had to fight your way into; ‘real fringe stuff’, as he puts it. ‘There were no tattooing magazines and you couldn’t buy the equipment. The thought was that if you were made of the right stuff you found out how.’

Inspiration for a tattooist

Even today the only way to become a fully-fledged artist is to beg for a long apprenticeship from an older, established artist. You won’t find an NVQ in tattooing offered at the local college (and nor will you ever if most artists have anything to do with it.) And there are no easy ways to the top. The years of slog and proving yourself have more in common with the traditional artisanal crafts of old.

Still, the art has been transformed into something acceptable and, in cities like London, almost commonplace. Gold agrees: ‘I don’t think it’s ever been better than at the moment; this is a new golden age with fantastic, world-class artists.’ Those artists are now famous in their own right, with long waiting lists and devotees who travel thousands of miles to be tattooed by them. There are dozens of websites and magazines devoted to the art, and conventions all over the globe are well-attended. One – the Third International London Tattoo Convention – is due to be held at the Truman Brewery on October 3-5. In September, a new fly-on-the-wall series called ‘London Ink’ will air on Discovery Real Time, which shadows four respected artists and their clients in a new studio.

You don't have to be tattooed to work here...but it helps

Though tattooing is clearly burgeoning in London – to the concern of some of the city’s more established artists, who worry about the industry’s integrity– the old ways haven’t been too diluted. Take the tradition detailed in the John Irving novel, ‘Until I Find You’, where the narrator Jack leaves his tattoo-artist mother to find his tattoo-collecting father. Visiting every famous tattoo studio in the world, Jack learns that the best artists have a signature style. Nikole Lowe, originally from New Zealand but now an artist at Clerkenwell studio ‘Into You’, confirms that this was no artistic license on Irving’s part. ‘It’s true that you can tell another artist’s work just by looking at it. Everyone has their own little thing they do.’ In the case of Lowe’s feminine designs, she might leave a loose tendril or branch.

Though these signature styles firmly delineate an artistic independence, in keeping with the traditional relationship of apprentice and mentor, there’s also a respectful hierarchy. The same, revered names crop up time and time again. Don Ed Hardy in San Francisco; Filip Leu in Switzerland; Sailor Jerry in Hawaii; Horiyoshi III in Japan – all are held up in awe. London’s own world-class artists include Lal Hardy of New Wave Tattoo in Muswell Hill, and the oldest artist still wielding the needles in the capital, George Bones – who has been running his Hanwell business for 32 years.

A hands-on experience

On the whole, artists are a nomadic lot – and even those who have based themselves in London for decades tend to travel widely, resulting in the many disparate styles on offer in the city. This makes for a tattooing scene in London as varied and vivid as its inhabitants. Wherever they get their inspiration, most artists have specialisms; some working in the ever-popular territory of hearts, naked ladies and patriotism, and others, like Lowe, offering the dainty end of Japanese design – with delicate shaded petals, glorious blood-red peonies and golden Koi carp all common motifs. Tribal tattoos – dense, intricate and dark – are still sought-after, while calligraphy is currently enjoying a renaissance in London.

While sporting a tattoo is not quite the norm, it’s true that no one is likely to bat an eyelid at one in most parts of London. The city’s many tattooists – and there are more than 100 studios in London alone – cater to a diverse range of clients of all ages, occupations, classes and nationalities. You certainly don’t have to fit a type to be welcomed at most studios, you just have to be over 18. Health and safety laws apply to tattoo studios and reputable artists stick to a number of golden rules: defined treatment areas (waiting, treatment and ‘dirty’ – for the sharps box), ultrasonic or autoclave sterilising equipment, single-use needles, inkpots and protective gloves.

Jesus alongside the Confederate flag

In London, studios are generally licensed, meaning that each shop has to have appropriate equipment, submit to an annual inspection and have proven knowledge of cross-contamination. In fact, Bhana believes that responsible studios such as his offer more barrier protection than the average dentist. Bhana, who is also president of the new Tattoo and Piercing Union feels ‘extremely frustrated’ at efforts to standardise licensing across the country: ‘Basically the Government will only shift its arse if there’s a scare story so that they can be seen to be the good guys. Otherwise, there’s no incentive for them to change.’

Reputable artists will also refuse to tattoo anyone who has not thought the commitment through. Bhana remembers a girl whose friend had died. ‘She came in in floods of tears and wanted his initials on her wrist. I had to talk her out of it because he wasn’t a close friend and down the line she would have regretted it. What was she going to do? Have a line of initials going up her wrist if anyone she knew died? I suggested she think of a design to have elsewhere which could represent her friend instead.’ He also tries to dissuade those with problematic love lives: ‘you often get men coming in for their girlfriend’s name when the relationship is on the rocks. They don’t think “maybe I should just have a conversation with this person” ’. The more accomplished artists spend significant time repairing the mistakes of less-scrupulous and skilled colleagues. Cover-ups are the bread-and-butter work in this industry, though of course there’s nothing like the blank canvas of virgin skin for artists truly to demonstrate their skill.

Concentration and hygiene go hand in hand

Asked about the tattoos they are proudest of and artists will hark back, not to their celebrity clients, but the tattoos that were a true design collaboration between themselves and the client. As Gold puts it, ‘then it becomes something that I couldn’t have come up with on my own, and nor could they. That’s when the magic happens.’


Some of the best
Flamin’ Eight
2 Castle Rd (020 7267 7888/www.flamineight.co.uk) Camden Town tube. Open Mon-Sat 10.30am-6pm.

Frith Street Tattoo and Piercing
18 Frith St, W1 (020 7734 8180/www.frithstreettattoo.co.uk) Tottenham Court Rd tube. Open Mon-Sat 12noon-8pm, Sun 1-7pm.

George Bone
58 Boston Rd, W7 (020 8579 0831/www.georgebonetattoos.co.uk) Boston Manor tube. Open Mon, Wed-Fri 12noon-6pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 10am-4pm, closed Tue.

Into You
144 St John St, EC1 (020 7253 5085/www.into-you.co.uk) Angel tube or Farringdon tube/rail. Open Mon-Sat 12noon-7pm.

Louis Molloy’s Middleton Tattoo Studio
(0161 655 3909/www.tattoos.co.uk).

New Wave Tattoo
157 Sydney Rd, N10 (020 8444 8779/www.newwavetattoo.co.uk) Highgate tube then 43, 134 bus. Open Mon 10.30am-5.30pm, Sat 10am-4.30pm.

‘London Ink’ follows some of the country’s leading tattoo artists. It airs on Discovery Real Time at 10pm from Sunday September 23.