Our editor Alice Snape’s Tattoo Street Style Last year, the book was released. The book features over 400 portraits of people from cities across the globe, including London, Brighton, LA, and NYC. A directory of tattoo studios in each city and a guide to different tattoo styles. Cally-Jo. Here’s a peek inside, and the reasons why Alice wrote the book.
I’ve always been fascinated by people and enjoyed glimpsing them from afar, and spying what they’re up to. When I travel to a new city, my favourite thing to do is find a little café and sit sipping a cup of coffee, watching the world go by. I love looking what someone has chosen to wear or their hair colour, wondering why I might be drawn to that person’s particular style, the way they walk or hold themselves. I make up little stories about them in my mind – perhaps they are on their way to a meeting, to call on a friend, to hang out at the park or to go to work? This fascination is the reason I fell in love street photography. It captures a moment in time, a place, or a person. Street-style photos tell a story – tiny but complete – of a place and the people in it.
Heather Shuker, photo
The best thing about this book is the collaboration with other photographers. We asked them to take their photos through their lens. The result doesn’t just provide a snapshot, it communicates a particular vision, with each photographer contributing his or her own unique style and interpretation of what ‘street style’ looks like.
In addition to the imagery, I enjoyed digging deeper into each individual’s motivations and gathering small pieces of their stories. This volume contains a variety of illustrations. Tattoo Street Style This allows me to introduce to you some of the most prominent tattoo artists, including Angelique Houtkamp and Wendy Pham in Berlin. But we’ve also spoken with random inhabitants of the eight cities we have featured – people I never would have discovered if I hadn’t written this book. In my everyday life, I often wish I could stop someone in the street and find out more about them – this book has given me the chance to do just that. In London, businesswoman Sian Rusu shared that her tattoos make her feel “different – and difference is what makes us unique”. In contrast, Berlin’s stylist Flora Amelie talks honestly about sometimes questioning her decision to become heavily tattooed, a revelation you wouldn’t expect from someone who portrays such confidence.
Photo by Lisa Jane
This compendium of fashion and tattoos in eight of my favorite places around the globe has been a joy. These are cities I love, have spent time in, and would like to return to. It will forever preserve this moment in history, which I love. It is a beautiful document that someone will one day look at as a historical record, just like I have seen old photos of tattooed women in the 1940s. It will be a moment in our lives that what feels so current as we flick through the pages is only a memory.
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