Think Ink

Body art inspires product design, retail concepts and design fairs.

Mark McMenamin -- Interior Design, 1/22/2008 12:00:00 AM

View the Slideshow

From Paleolithics to Popeye to little girls trading temporary Hello Kittys, tattoos have tempted generations to put ink to skin. But now, from Florida to California, on laptops, linen, and crystal, body art leaps from the shoulder and into the spotlight.

The recent Design Miami saw its first pop-up tattoo parlor, offering designs by the likes of Lawrence Weiner, Jürgen Mayer H., and Hella Jongerius. Ku Ambiance, a retailer of traditional-inspired contemporary Japanese furnishings, opened its first U.S. store, in Los Angeles, with an exhibit by Don Ed Hardy, considered the godfather of the tattoo. His designs also adorn the walls of his own eponymous retail outposts (the 25th just opened in LA's Beverly Center) and a Christian Audigier shop, both in downtown New York.

Uptown, Steuben has launched Kiki Smith's Tattoo line of five engraved crystal objects. A South Carolina company called Of the Young and the Restless has released the bicep-worthy printed linen Thorny Rose. And on February 23, "Body Politics, Maori Tattoo Today" opens at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Here, we expand upon the tattoo trend report from the January issue of Interior Design with an assortment of related images not found in the print edition. To view the photos, click to start the slide show above. Oh, and we nearly forgot: Roll up your sleeve.