Tattoos go mainstream after sketchy image

LONDON - Mothers shopping with teenage children and parents pushing baby buggies joined the crowds of body art enthusiasts at this weekend's annual London Tattoo Convention, underscoring the increasing acceptance of tattoos in mainstream culture.

The convention, one of Europe's biggest tattoo events, saw over 400 artists from around the world converge on east London, with organizers expecting to host over 20,000 people during the three-day festival.

"There's been a total global shift in attitude," said Marcus Berriman, organizer of the London Tattoo Convention.

"Once upon a time, people associated it with criminals and bikers and punks, but now it's mainstream really ... it's on a completely different level to where it was 10 years ago."

With a 2015 YouGov poll suggesting that almost one fifth of British adults have tattoos, and other research suggests that visible body art may be becoming less of a barrier to employment.

A 2016 survey carried out by Ipsos MORI for Britain's Police Federation found that 81 percent of respondents said that a police officer having visible tattoos would make no difference to their confidence in their ability to do their job.

Some enthusiasts for body art have encountered problems. British solicitors Atwells published case studies in 2016 documenting the cases of several workers - including a consultant, a waitress and a retail employee - who were fired for contravening policies against visible tattoos.

Despite these obstacles, tattoo artists suggested that Britain might be a European outlier in terms of its increasingly liberal attitude to tattooing.

"In England, it's more cool, more accepted, than in France or in other places," French artist Guillaume Smash said.

Reuters

(China Daily 09/25/2017 page11)