Category: Fashion and beauty

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Elementary Scents – The tattoos behind the start-up

Created by best friends Becky and Steve, Elementary, are 100% natural parfums, brewed in the UK. They’re proud to be zero-waste, vegan and cruelty-free, and not afraid to be a little bit different. We caught up with Becky to hear all about her tattoo collection and the inspiration behind Elementary.

I’ve always been a massive nature nerd (and proud of it) and have been fascinated by tattoos for as long as I can remember. Being mixed raced in a predominately white school, I often struggled to accept my skin growing up, and at times felt like the odd one out.

Tattoos have become such a cathartic outlet for me and a way to embrace who I am.

That, and the freedom of nature, have had a huge impact on my life, as well as helping to shape our vision for Elementary. We launched in December last year and we’re a small, indie brand making 100% natural, unisex fragrances.

Swallow – My first tattoo. I heard Alice on the ‘Outside In’ podcast recently and she mentioned that “it’s a right of passage to have a shit first tattoo experience”. I couldn’t agree more! Done in my early twenties; I was left waiting for hours, sat sweating during the whole process and ended up with a tattoo more cutesy than Sailor Jerry, and some script that looks more like ‘familu’ than ‘family’. I don’t regret it though, and it’s paved the way for the rest of my ink.

Lotus and Hamsa – They may be teeny, but these guys mean a lot. I’m quite a spiritual person and love what they symbolise. They were done by Abi Tonge who was a tattoo apprentice at the time. She’s gone on to do some amazing things, which is just awesome. Both Steve and I are both big into mindfulness and really welcome this into our vision for Elementary. Although we create fragrances, we believe it’s so much more than just smelling great.

Nature scene – A little reminder of my love of nature and how it can make you feel. Mountains, trees and fresh air. Is there anything better? This piece reflects a huge part of our concept for Elementary; that reconnection to nature, feeling inspired and free.

Robin and envelope – This tattoo sparked my thigh collection and was brought to life by Josie Hall who’s since become a good friend and my ‘official’ tattooist. It has a strong emotional meaning, as I had it done shortly after my nan passed away in 2012. The envelope signifies a way to always keep in touch, and I think most of us remember a loved one when we see a robin, don’t we? I love this tattoo.

Crying heart – A crying heart usually symbolises heartbreak, but for me, it’s a reminder to always look after my mental health and accept that it’s ok to feel a little sad sometimes. Wellbeing is something we’re really keen to talk about – let’s be open and accepting of our feelings. Our scents have a super high concentration of essential oils, giving them aromatherapeutic qualities, which is such a great and simple way to get a little boost.

Peony and sweet peas – Both of these tattoos were done for people that I’m so grateful to have in my life. Pretty much anyone that knows me, will be aware just how much I ADORE my nan. A few years ago she gave me a cutting from her peony and it blooms every single year. I love it and I love her, so now I have a peony that lasts all year round. She’s 96 and loves this tattoo. She’s very cool.

My mum has always called me Sweetpea and grows them each year. Last year she went through a lot and it was a really scary time. I got this as a constant reminder of her strength and beauty. She’s not too keen on tattoos but was actually pretty tearful when I showed her this, which is lovely.

Bee and forget-me-nots – Not much explanation needed for this one – bees are incredible and so important to our ecosystem. Without them, we’d be pretty screwed! They’re also extremely beautiful, and the fluffy ones are just wonderful (and damn cute).

Ship in a bottle, exotic lady, ‘You’re so cool’ – I’m a firm believer that not all tattoos need to have a meaning behind them. And these three don’t. They’re some of my favourite pieces and I got them simply because I wanted them. (If you don’t get the film reference we can’t be friends).

And lastly…herb – A spontaneous little guy that I got with Steve not so long ago. We were working away and managed to find a tattoo studio that was open in the morning, on a Sunday, and did walk-ins. We both love dinosaurs (why wouldn’t you?) so I got this, he got a raptor. It’s honestly such a cool experience getting tattooed with your best mate, and it’s basically cemented our friendship forever.

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Modern Woman, Indigenous Spirit

The story behind Laurence Moniasse Sessou’s tattoos and scarification

Photography and Art Direction – Josh Brandao / Model – Laurence Moniasse Sessou / Words/Story – Laurence Moniasse Sessou and Alice Snape / Illustrations and Set Dressing – Katerina Samoilis / Styling – Olivia Snape / Make-up and Hair – Anna Wild using Nars / Septum Ring – Studio Lil Art and Design / Earrings – Manaka Handmade / Thanks to India Ame ‘Ye’

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From a very young age, I have always been fascinated by body art, everything that seemed a bit forbidden and weird, I pay attention to. I was always a dreamer and would often get in trouble for not conforming and being different (mainly from my peers in the neighbourhood). I grew up in a small town in France called Evreux. It wasn’t easy being a teenager, I’ve experienced a fair bit of bullying while growing up.

I have always been fascinated by body art, everything that seemed a bit forbidden and weird

I came to London for the first time in 1999, when I was 20 years old, to pay a visit to my sister. From that moment, I knew I had to come back to that sense of freedom. London was so big and messy, but I knew I could find myself in that mess. A year later, in 2000, I came back, supposedly, for one year to learn English – but I never looked back. I graduated in 2007 with a Bsc Natural Therapeutics (Bodywork and Neuromuscular therapy) from the University of Westminster. I have been practicing for over eight years now and hold two busy practices in London.

While I was at university, I started travelling, Thailand was my first big trip – I was amazed by the Thai culture and, of course, tattoo was part of it. One of my friends at the time had her full leg tattooed, I thought it was insane. I loved it, but never thought it would be my cup of tea. This idea of having something permanently on my body freaked me out. But as I travelled more through the world, I became more open to many things, including spirituality and body marking. My first tattoos were two little ankhs on my wrists. I was 21 and in London at the time. Then I went on another trip to Thailand and decided to get
a fairy on my right shoulder, it was an African fairy that looked nothing like a fairy after a few months. I had started losing a bit of weight and her face disappeared.

I love flowers. They are beautiful, feminine – I just love they way they always face towards the sun

I guess the big trigger to my transformation started in Mexico, when I went to Palenque for the first time. That’s where I met tattoo artist Sanya Youalli, and we had a chat. I was originally there just to view her work, but our conversation ended with starting to decorate my left arm with flowers and spirals. I love flowers. They are beautiful, feminine – I just love they way they always face towards the sun, I like to see myself as a flower and always look and walk towards the light. I love the warmth and the way the sun kisses my skin. Spirals symbolise infinity, this ocean of opportunity that never ends. I could have my body covered in them, I can’t see myself falling out of love with these symbols. Sanya and I became close friends, we’re like sisters, every time I go to Mexico, she continues work on my arm and when she came to London for the tattoo convention, last year, she stayed at my home and we carried on.

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Then I was looking for another artist to do a cover up of my right arm, Sanya had started doing some kind of removal work for the fairy, but we didn’t get a chance to cover it completely. I knew I wanted it to be covered as soon as possible, so I searched for another artist. I found Touka Voodoo at the Divine Canvas studio – again it was an instant connection. I loved his work, so Touka did the cover up of my right shoulder and we carried on the theme of flowers and spirals – I have a full sleeve now. I also met Iestyn at Divine Canvas, I knew the kind of work he specialised in: scarification and piercings. I remember thinking to myself, “Who on Earth in this age would want to go through this?’ He proposed to perform scarification on me as he’d never worked on black/African skin before. I told him, “No way! You will never cut my skin, never!’

About a year later, I was going through some changes in my life and my spiritual practice started to become more important. I initially wanted to tattoo my back with some symbols of my spiritual path, I spoke to my sister about it and she thought that my skin tone was so beautiful, if I did tattoo my back, my arm work would disappear. That is when the idea of the scarification came to me. I thought it would be a way to embrace my spiritual practice, as well as my tribal African roots. One day I went to see Iestyn, we discussed the design and we started. Iestyn knew me for about a year and he understood my journey and where I was coming from – I trusted him fully with it, he was absolutely amazing.

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The meaning of the symbols – the cross in the middle is ‘the Chakana’ sacred cross where the fire of life burns, the four arrows around it represent the four nations and four directions, flowers symbolise beauty and femininity, spirals symbolise infinity, and dots for their simplicity – and how lovely they look. To me, it is like carrying my dream in my back: the four nations enjoying the fire of life together in the four corners of the globe, in beauty and harmony with each other and nature… It sounds a bit dreamy, but that is the truth. I live to see a better world and become a better person.

Having the scarification done was very challenging, particularly the healing – it is a long and painful process. I was not been able to sleep on my back for over seven months. When the keloids form, it is very itchy. Receiving the scar wasn’t as bad as people may think, of course, you feel it as the first cut is done without anaesthetic, but there is no other way to go through it, you must feel and transcend the pain – and it is a beautiful feeling. I was very high at the end of it, feeling super-human.

I didn’t think the scar was going to raise that much, I thought I would have a very discreet design on my back, but my body decided how it was going to turn out and I love it! It is quite bold and shocking for some people, but I don’t really care, the journey and the story behind this back is worth it.

The chest scarification was also performed by Iestyn and filmed live by Nick Knight back in May 2013, it was supposed to be used for a music video, but it wasn’t in the end. But, hey, I got paid to have a beautiful piece of body art work on my chest and got the amazing opportunity to work with a genius like Nick Knight. It was a dream come true.

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I didn’t realise how emotional I was going to feel about doing this photo shoot for The Modification Issue using pictures of my family, including my mother and grandmothers. I started to have tears in my eyes, because I know how powerful and brave these women are and I know the struggle they have been through in life and in labour. They respectively brought my mother and my father, and my mum brought me into this world. I feel deeply grateful and proud to be a fruit of their lives, I feel they are still living through me, and my nephews and nieces, they are eternal. And I hope that from wherever they are, they are watching over with pride, their lives will always be celebrated.

 Laurence’s story was first published in Things & Ink magazine, when we were in print.

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Tattoo Street Style by Alice Snape

Our editor Alice Snape’s Tattoo Street Style book came out last year. It features more than 400 original portraits in cities from London and Brighton to LA and NYC, and a directory of studios in each city, a guide to tattoo styles and a personal foreword from tattoo artist Cally-Jo. Here’s a peek inside, and the reasons why Alice wrote the book.

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Derryth Ridge, spotted in Brighton. Photo by Heather Shuker

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 why I fell in love with street style photography. I love that it captures a moment, a city, a person at that exact point in time. Street-style photos tell a story – tiny but complete – of a place and the people in it.

Manni Kalsi, spotted in London. Photo by Heather Shuker
Manni Kalsi, spotted in London.
Photo by Heather Shuker

What I have loved about writing this book is not only capturing a sense of each city, but working with different photographers in each location, whom we briefed to capture their city through their own 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.

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Simone Thompson, spotted in New York. Photo by Elena Mudd

Alongside the imagery, I have loved delving further into what motivates each of those people and gathering snippets of their life stories. This volume of Tattoo Street Style allows me to introduce you to some prominent figures in the tattoo world, such as Wendy Pham in Berlin and Angelique Houtkamp in Amsterdam. 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.

Flora Amalie Pedersen spotted in Berlin. Photo by Lisa Jane
Flora Amalie Pedersen spotted in Berlin.
Photo by Lisa Jane

It has been a joy to curate this compendium of tattoos and fashion in eight of my favourite places around the world, cities I have lived in, loved spending time in and dream of returning to. I love that it will immortalise this period in time. I love that one day, someone will look at it as a historical document, in the way that I have looked at old photos of tattooed women from the 1940s. What feels so thoughtfully current now as you flick through the pages will one day be but a memory of our own moment in time.

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Cally-Jo, spotted in Brighton. Photo by Heather Shuker

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In all good bookshops and available to order online here

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For Identity // Against Stereotypes

A couple of months ago, lingerie brand The Underargument asked our editor Alice to model for their new campaign: For Identity // Against Stereotypes. This inspiring lingerie brand is a wearable reminder to embrace individuality and argue against the norm.

The For Identity // Against Stereotypes collection illustrates that we are more than the boxes that we are sometimes put in. Your identity does not start or stop with your gender, your religion, your abilities, your cultural, occupational or social background. This underargument will remind you that you don’t have to be the product of your environment and predispositions or let stereotypes define you.

Here is Alice’s story for the collection. 

 

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“One of my favourite things about my tattoos is that they challenge traditional stereotypes of beauty, that a woman’s skin should be pure or unmarked. It still shocks me that, in 2019, some magazines and mainstream media push the idea that we should look a certain way, by losing weight or using make-up to conceal our so called imperfections. It is so damaging.”

“Perceptions of tattooed women have always suggested sexual promiscuity and over-confidence. And I think that society still views female confidence with an irrational disdain. Perhaps that is why tattoos on a woman are so provocative. I don’t often wear shorts in the summer now for fear of #tatcalling. As dependable as clockwork – when you’re a tattooed woman in public, some guy will eventually shout, “I like your tattoos!” My tattoos aren’t an invitation to leer at me. My tattoo on my back is certainly not permission to run your hands down my spine or pull my top down to “get a better look” or ask me “how far does that go down love?”; I am not public property. Tattoos don’t make me “easy”, they are not any reflection of my morals and they don’t mean I am seeking attention.

I bumped into an ex a few years ago who was like “what are you, good girl gone bad? “

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“Whenever I go back to my hometown, it’s a small place in the midlands, people are always shocked that I have tattoos. I bumped into an ex a few years ago who was like “what are you, good girl gone bad? “. My uncle has a few tattoos and even he is surprised that I am the one in the family who is heavily tattooed. Women with tattoos are never portrayed as the “girl next door”, they are never the nerdy girl, they are the bad girl, and they are sexualised. Women with tattoos have been painted that way for years. The Tattooed Lady in the circus, for example, was literally a freak, a strange creature to be objectified.

“Tattoos have always been for “tough guys”, and men with tattoos aren’t sexualised in the same way that women are. I was a studious girl at school, quiet, shy, forever with my head in a book. The fact that I have ink on my skin apparently doesn’t fit into mould. But I am still that person. In fact, tattoos have given me confidence. I used to hate the way I looked and adorning my body with beautiful artwork has been empowering – and I can’t wait to see how my collection grows. I would love to fill all the gaps. It will be my life’s work. It is funny. People often ask if I worry about what I will look like when I am older, but, really, why would I? I don’t plan on fitting into another stereotype about what I should or shouldn’t look like in my seventies, eighties, nineties…”

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View more at theunderargument.com

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We love kewpies

Rose O_Neill 1907Rose O’Neill first illustrated Kewpie dolls to be featured in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and they swiftly became extremely popular. Born in Germany, their name derived from the word “Cupid”, for the Roman God of beauty.

Shortly after Rose was 19, she moved to New York city alone with only 60 drawings. Within three months, she had sold them all. She was shocked by their popularity. She began illustrating for children’s books and was highly successful, appearing in many popular publications including Harper’s Bazaar and Good Housekeeping. She drew over 700 cartoons for the humour magazine, Puck, which was a predominantly male-centric title at the time.

Her career was unparalleled and she truly demonstrated the traits of a strong woman. During her success, she sent her earnings home to her father, who converted their two-bedroom cabin in Missouri into a 14-room mansion. Rose also bought homes in New York, Connecticut and the Italian Isle of Capri. In a time where women could not even vote, she was truly supporting her family and allowing them to live a life they were not previously accustomed to.

Kewpie Postcard

Rose took inspiration for her work from many different areas of her life. Her Kewpie dolls came to her in a dream. Rose O’Neill had a dream of small little cherub-like elves jumping on her bed, one night in 1909. When she woke, she hurried to her drawing desk and sketched the first Kewpie. From there, her love of the small Kewpie never faltered.

Tattoo by Kim Anh-Nguyen
Tattoo by Kim-Anh 

Kewpies took their doll form in 1913, manufactured in Germany, designed by Joseph Dallas. They were five inches tall, with jointed arms, painted eyes and a distinctive moulded face. They became highly collectable, and in 1939 a Kewpie doll was entered into a time capsule in New York’s World Fair. Early dolls now raise thousands of dollars, and are highly collectable. But they were not only captured in celluloid and plastic; Kewpies were immortalised in colouring books, stationery, cups, plates and poems. More recently, they have been commonly eternalised in tattoos. Many artists now tattoo the dolls in many different outfits and styles, but always keeping to the distinct Kewpie characteristics Rose O’Neill designed.

Tattoo by Lauren Winzer
Tattoo by Lauren Winzer

Kewpies were popular in tattoo flash around the time of their conception, but faded out by the 1950s, being seen as old-fashioned. Today, they are almost as famous in tattoo flash as other bold traditional designs, such as the pin-up girl. Many artists are known for their amazing renditions of these cherub-like children, such as Kim-Anh Nguyen, Lauren Winzer and the late tattoo legend Mike Malone.

Kewpie necklace, by Bete Noire.

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