What Everyone's Thinking About Tattoo

Tattoos are the ultimate beauty mark – one you choose to wear. Forever. As of right now, about one-third of you have probably made that choice. And we’ll bet that many more are seriously considering it. So we talked to the people on both ends of the needle to find out exactly what everyone’s inking about.

- Brennan Kilbane, Jessica Chia, Danielle Pergamet

THE ARTIST IS IN SESSION

Miryam Lumpini is injured. She has wrapped a navy Gucci scarf around her camouflage-print foot cast to prevent her toes from getting cold. The tattoo studio she’s working in looks more like a supervillain’s lair than a place you would go to get a tattoo, with concrete floors and obsidian ceilings. Miryam has her own studio, but does residencies at tattoo parlours around the world. Kendrick Lamar is blaring from hidden ceiling speakers at a decibel level just below ear-shattering, hypebeasts in sweatpants lie flat on wooden tables, while other hypebeasts toil away on their limbs.

Miryam’s canvas is Adrian, a 23-year-old sailor from the Philippines. (It’s a comfort to know that in a turbulent and changing tattoo landscape, sailors will continue to uphold a stereotype.) His current tattoos include flowers, lyrics and an inspirational quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. Future tattoos include a phoenix emerging from a shattered Fabergé egg, rising triumphantly into the sky, or, in this case, rising triumphantly into his shoulder blades.

Perhaps you’re wondering, ‘How is it possible to freehand a scene as magnificent as a mythical bird emerging from a gilt-enamel object into a tempest of ash and gold and sparkling elements?’ The answer: it helps to be Miryam Lumpini.