Tattoo is no longer associated with prison cells only. Tattoo is popular among sportsmen, celebrities, but also lawyers, bankers, and ladies from the "corner store". How do we know it? This is what we see. Permanent drawings are made not only in invisible locations but also in those that we want to expose. Moreover, summer is a good season for watching tattoos of Wroclaw's residents; this is why we decided to check out the resent trends.
Playing with numbers
Piotrek is a doctoral students at the Physics and Astronomy Faculty of the Wroclaw University.
"My tattoo shows the letter e, i.e. the Euler number. This cool
name is used very often in physics. i matematyce. It would take a long time to discuss all its properties, so I encourage you to do
some reading", said Piotr. "I came up with the idea for my tattoo a long time ago, but it took me a long time to implement it. First, I had to write a special computer program that generated this pattern. The interesting thing is that the numbers disappear in accordance with an exponential function. The tattoo does not interfere with my work at all. Because I am a physicist and I work in science, this drawing on my body raised a rather positive interest at the University. Will I have more tattoos? I have two ideas but I want to take time with them.
"There are few people with one tattoo and even fewer with two"
Michał is the owner of a design office and designs original patterns for tags and clothes..
"Now I have eight tattoos and I am a living proof that tattoos are addictive. I can confirm that "there are few people with one tattoo and even fewer with two", said Michał. "I had my first tattoo back in high school, but by now it has been covered with another. So if someone asks about my first "true" tattoo, it was designed by the future tattoo maker based on my suggestions and ideas. To be honest, I did not think much about it, I just did it. Now I am a little tired of it and I am planning to have something new made on top of it.
It is hard not to notice Michał's tattoos but, as he admitted, he never had any problems with his employers.
"Now I am my own boss so I don't have this problem any more. However, none of my earlier employers told me to cover them or fired me because of my tattoos. I suspect that one person even hired me because of them, but this is just my guess", he added. "As far as people with tattoos are concerned, I notice them, although in my opinion there are not too many of then in Wroclaw. Luckily, there are such events as tattoo convents which increase the awareness and "infect" new ‚clean ones‘ So, things are getting better.
Two legs and one tattoo
Monika works in the finance department of a large company in Wroclaw.
"I have one tattoo, but on two legs. I had it made two years ago, inspired by a photo I found a long time ago in the internet and by the fact that a tattoo maker that I know is the best at graphic/geometric tattoos. We talked about the style and the pattern and in a few months she designed a tattoo for me that we did right away.
I was so happy then that I did not think about new ones. However, lately I have been thinking about extending this pattern to make it larger or more picturesque. Yes, tattoos are addictive," admitted Monika. "My tattoo is quite visible but I do not really have to cover it up at work. I never had any problems at work because of it. I would even say that it is one of my strength, a surprise which sometimes causes delight. Personally, I notice nice tattoos and I think that more and more people decide to decorate their bodies in this way. Tattoos are not associated with prisons only, they are a kind of artistic message", she added.
"I am implementing a thought-through concept"
"I have five tattoos, but I do not believe that you can get addicted to decorating your body 
in this way. What I am doing is implementing a thought-through concept, although I have to admit that it has not always been this way", says Magdebursky (a pseudonym requested by our interlocutor) who works in artistic photography. "I had my first tattoo in industrial, post-apocalyptic basement conditions, by myself, using a home-made tool, inspired by the impulsive and rash youthful momentary explosion. I will soon cover the mistake with another, thought-through pattern and I will select a tattoo studio based, most importantly, on the pattern I want made. Each tattoo maker, if he or she is a full-fledged artist and not a craftsman, specializes in a certain style; this is what we should use as a basis for using their services. The problem is that the waiting lines in such studios are long and you have to wait for months; in some cases that I know of you have to book a visit in the next calendar year. Everyone has to decide whether they want to wait for so long or whether they will choose the best price, etc. My old and future tattoos have been and will be made by the same tattoo maker that I trust. This is mostly because, during a session, he allows me to watch cool cartoons and gives me ten days to complain about any problems with the job", he laughs.
A tattoo? It's in fashion!
Can tattoos be considered a new fad? There are more and more places in Wroclaw where people can modify their bodies in this way and more and more people have tattoos made.
Cropp Tattoo Konwent 2014 in Wroclaw
"You can call this a fad. This trend is spreading among new people who come because they simply want a tattoo, without making a statement", admitted tattoo makers from Wroclaw's Cleanfun studio. "Usually they come with an idea. This is true in the case of larger tattoos. We design a pattern or work on the pattern brought by the customer. Some people have no patterns or ideas and don't even know on which body part they want the tattoo made.
Tattoos are no longer manifestations of young people's protest or a sign of membership in a specific subculture..
"Most our customers are young people but two or three week ago we had some lawyers who had new tattoos made here. Our customers include a 60-years old married couple. In the last two years, the lady had five tattoos and the gentleman has the entire arm covered with tattoos. What is also interesting is that in the last two years the locations of tattoos changed, too. People are no longer afraid to wear them in visible places, on their forearms, calves, and even necks.
As for the pattern, there are no rules. Some like black ones, others prefer coloured ones; some want their tattoos to define them and others treat them as decoration.
"In the case of small tattoos, quite often the pattern simply has to be nice. Girls usually choose feathers or dream catchers, which have been popular lately. Some people come with patterns that are to define them in some ways. One our friends works in a hospital as an operator of an X-ray machine and his tattoo is Wilhelm Röntgen's portrait.
ulaj
