Tag Archives: Tattoos
Cervena Fox
Mercedes Edison
I’m a sinner who’s probably gonna sin again.
This sexy sinner is from Liverpool, England. Read an interview that she did with Van Styles for The Hundreds here.
Hot backstage video of her shoot with Christian Saint for the cover of Tattoo Life Magazine.
Update: Van Styles just posted this.
Issue 185 – Arabella Drummond
Inky princess Arabella takes over.
Bodies of Subversion
Cindy Ray (real name Bev Robinson) was Australia’s first tattooed alternative pin up girl and became hugely popular after posing for hundreds of photos in the 1950s and 60s. The image is one of many lavish illustrations in the new and updated edition of Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoos.
Most people think of tattoos as a modern phenomenon, but according to author Margot Mifflin, getting inked has been part of subversive subculture for centuries.
Mifflin traces the history of women and tattoos in Western society from the early 1800s to the present, charting the special significance tattooing has for women as a powerfully transgressive form of self-expression.
Olive Oatman is believed to be the first white woman in America to have had a tattoo. Abducted with her sister by native American Indians in 1851, she became a sensation when she was ransomed back years later, her chin adorned with tribal tattoos.
Such was her fame, that many of the female travelling circus attractions who started to appear in this period, earning a living showing off their own tattoos (and their naked flesh), pretended they too had been abducted and tattooed by Native Americans to add to their allure.
In the UK, the history of tattooed women is slightly different. Popularised by explorers returning home full of tales about the weird and wonderful tattooed people they saw on their travels, body art became the accessory of choice for upper class women in the 19th Century.
Even Queen Victoria is believed to have had one in the form of a Bengal tiger fighting with a python. Wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill’s mother Jennie also had a serpent tattoo, although hers was rebelliously visible and inked bracelet style around her wrist. Mifflin explains:
Upper class women were making a feminist gesture. They were taking control of their bodies when they had little power elsewhere.
Sadly, tattoos didn’t equal control for many Victorian women, some of whom were tattoed against their will and press-ganged into work as circus attractions.
But while tattoos remained popular during the 1920s, their popularity waned in the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Left to languish in the fashion wilderness for nearly 40 years, the tattoo next staged a comeback in the 1970s, when they were claimed by the nascent feminist movement.
It was about the greater freedom of women to do what they wanted with their own body. In the 70s, tattoos took on a whole new dimension when issues of abortion rights and contraception and government regulation of women’s bodies called attention to the question of who’s controlling women and why.
Since then, tattoos have become ever more popular. Mifflin charts how the rise of body art mirrored that of cosmetic surgery in the body-conscious 80s, before becoming part of mainstream culture in the 1990s.
Although a huge celebrity trend, the book reveals that tattoos have also been adopted by breast cancer survivors, who use them to conceal the marks left by their mastectomies.
This chimes with Mifflin, who envisions a future where faded roses and barbed wire designs have become a thing of the past; replaced by tattoos that compliment the body rather than smother it. The back design above was created by one of the UK’s leading female tatooists Sara Hunjan.
The future of tattooing is about decorating the body and not hanging pictures on it. And abstract work has a better chance of standing the test of time.
Alloy Ash
Kinky steampunkish corsetry, lacy lingerie, one of the finest butts ever to come in front of a camera, and a great close up of that “Beautiful Suffering” thigh tattoo.
It can only be brand new from Alloy Ash!
The words are from an Emilie Autumn song called Liar.
I want to heal you pretty sweet
I’ll throw rose petals at your feet
I’ll spend eternity
Comparing all my poetry to yours
I want to see love through your eyes
You’ll never have to compromise
I’d give up all my fame
To fight your demons and your bloody warsI want to mix our blood
And put it in the ground
So you can never leave
I want to earn your trust
Your faith, your heart
You’ll never be deceivedAre you suffering?
I want your suffering
I want your beautiful suffering
Suicide Sunday – Lass Special
It was so great to see Julie Kennedy (Lass Suicide) back in FRONT this month. It’s been a while since I posted some pictures from her famous English Sunset shoot for Suicide Girls. Earlier this year she did another outdoorsy shoot with natural lighting, redder than red undies which look as if they’re painted on, and that beautiful, red hair too of course.
Before I started to read FRONT and saw models like Julie I wasn’t even sure that I liked inked ladies. It took a tattooed girl from Scotland to really open my eyes.
If you’re impressed by Lass’s taste in underwear, you can now buy this lingerieaholic’s own handmade range “here.
This is the original painting of three horse’s heads on which that amazing back-piece was based. It’s by J.F. Herring and dates from around 1848. This blog post examines the painting’s intriguing history (and mentions it’s popularity as a tattoo).
Leanna Banana
This lady is so effortlessly cute yet edgy at the same time. If I was the editor of FRONT or Bizarre I’d put her straight on to the next cover. Curvy, redhead heaven. Tumblr – Interview – Photography.
Update: Great new picture – now with added cinnamon!
Frontbotties 