Matt Lodder

For lots of us who are heavily tattooed, it becomes almost like a collecting thing, right?

So we can treat tattooing like collecting art or collecting whatever you're into.

And once you own your collection, it becomes part of your life.

your life story, but part of your sense of who you are.

And it's difficult to imagine life without them sometimes, you know?

That really kicks in that idea, that real sort of stigma against tattooing really doesn't kick in in the US and Britain until the 1950s properly.

But even as early, which is a result partly of changing tastes, lots of

Lots of people were tattooed during World War II and then their kids were just like, oh my God, I don't want to look like my mum or my dad because they've got tattoos.

And also tattooing gets a bit of a bad reputation in the 50s when stories come out about the forced tattooing of Jewish people in concentration camps, for example.

So tattooing and sort of stigmatisation really...

is a particular product of the 1950s.

I mean, before that, it was something that was looked upon like a bit eccentric, but as I said, there were plenty of aristocrats and clubmen and, you know, members of wealthy families who were tattooed.

And although it was looked upon strangely, it wasn't particularly stigmatizing.

if you get stuff that's kind of not particularly trendy, like people getting internet memes or the kind of real trend at the moment, these things do look very dated very quickly.

But, you know, if you get a good example, even of things that are trendy in the moment, they're going to last, they're going to survive, they're going to be good.

I mean, it's a good lesson to remember that

tattoos do last your whole life but embedded in those questions i think there's always this interesting paradox right because on the one hand it's like aren't you worried about being in fashion and then it's like aren't you worried about being not in fashion because yeah so i i always i always think that that question is kind of you can't win right

People have been predicting a kind of decline in tattooing, and we have seen that in the past.

You know, things like all things come and go in waves.

But I think one of the real interesting things that's happening at the moment is that tattoos are more easily removed now than they have been before.