The day fashion got tattooed
For decades tattoos were considered the territory of sailors, criminals and rebels. Fashion looked the other way.
Until 1971, when Issey Miyake brought it to the runway for the first time with flesh-toned garments with portraits of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix that looked like tattooed skin.
Not a dress. A second skin.
In 1994, Jean Paul Gaultier went further.
After visiting a tattoo convention in the UK, he created “Les Tatouages“: models with real piercings, mesh tops with tattoo prints, modified bodies on the runway.
High fashion looked tattooing straight in the eye.
In the early 2000s, Ed Hardy arrived.
Rihanna, Madonna, the most iconic celebrities of the moment were wearing his pieces.
Tattoos were no longer underground, they had become pop culture.
In 2010, Alexander McQueen created a dress entirely hand-embroidered on silk net to recreate the effect of a full-body tattoo.
Drew Barrymore and Naomi Campbell wore it on the red carpet.
McQueen didn’t put tattoos on fabric, he turned fabric into skin.
Today, fashion houses keep rediscovering that legacy. The Gaultier house keeps revisiting its Tattoo Collection to this day.
What started on the skin has never really left the runway.
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