I’ve been quite intrigued by the tattoos of my friend Yoann Lemoine. “I was totally doing something against my parents I was 24. I knew that it was something irreversable and undoable .It is really powerful and links you to death because the moment that you do it it is the only action that you can do that is still going to be with you when you die. I am going to be in a casket and I’ll have this on. It is pretty intense to do it. ” said Yoann Lemoine.

“It was not pain related the first time that I did it because I had never had tattoos before so I did not see it as something sadistic that once you made one you would want to do it again. I think that is why people that get tattoos always get more.” said Yoann.

“When I got these two tattoos it was to have a meeting with the tattoo artist to talk about my project of the keys but it was a special day, 7 07, my fetish number, so while I was there I said this is not a meeting let’sdo it. It is a great tattoo artist that did it in NYC. I did it in this place called adorned.

Diane

The other day I went to visit Alistair Carr to interview him for chapter 2 of my documentary on Mr. Pearl. Alistair had so many great stories to tell about working for Mr. Pearl but while we were talking I could not help but notice all of his tattoos. Alistair works 24/7 for Balenciaga but on the few days off that he gets in a year, he takes the train back to Brighton and he gets another tattoo. He wants to cover his entire body, leaving space where a jacket would be open to let the soul out. He got his first tattoo at the age of 14 and managed to hide it from his mother for a good 4 months by wearing sweaters in the summer. Finally she told him he doesn’t have to hide it anymore because she knew it was there. His first tattoo was a bit of a mistake, now that he thinks about it, he just picked a design off the wall, did not watch while it was being made and afterwards was a bit shocked by the green outline , now he prefers to work with artists that make tattoos especially for him. He is quite random about his choices. Some tattoos have meaning , others don’t. When asked why he wants to be covered in tattoos he said that nothing in his life is permanent except for his tattoos. Diane

Normally I would not really think about posting a still from a Venezuelan Pharmaceutical ad on Sang Bleu but in this particular case, I could not resist. My friend, the multi-talented Miguel Villalobos sent me a few stills from a film he is art directing for a Pharmaceutical House in Venezuela and I went under a spell and asked for more. Here are a few of the images. I think we have a potential contender for Tim Burton on our hands.

more from Miguels pharmaceutical film

the food

Today I met my friend, Shoji Fujii at the Café Rouge in Paris. We talked about a lot of things, for instance, did you know that in Japan on Valentine’s day it is the little girls that give the chocolates to the boys that they are interested in and not the other way around? How many chocolates you get is a sign of your popularity. If the mom’s are worried that their son won’t get any chocolates, she goes out and buys some for him, this is the ultimate insult and to avoid this kind of embarrassment often the boys buy their own chocolates so they don’t have to come home empty handed.

In 1995 Shoji met the publisher of Street Magazine while he was working at Vivienne Westwood and that was the start of his photography career. He likes tattoos and he sees them as a personal stamp that sets you apart from the others. He feels that without a tattoo the focus tends to be on the body, the face or the voice but when you have a tattoo people look at what is drawn  on you. He got his first tattoo when he was 22 and for that he chose the strong symbol of a dragon. His Chinese sign is a Rat. His second tattoo was two dragons on either side of the first dragon. The Bird of Paradise on his arm came from a t-shirt that he really liked and is probably the most common tattoo in China symbolizing that even when they die, like the phoenix it regenerates and comes back to life.

When Shoji was a child growing up in Kyoto he identified people with tattoos as yakuza. At that time in the 80’s or early 90’s people with tattoos could not go to the swimming pool or public baths because the other people would be afraid of them. Older generations of people would stare at him when he got his tattoos thinking he was part of the Japanese mafia. His own mother did not react to his tattoos for years but then one day she told him that it was really bad that he had them.

In the 80’s girls used to like to get the logo of Vivienne Westwood  tattooed on their shoulders. Japanese like designers logos as tattoos. Well, some of them anyway. His favorite designer is Bernhard Willhelm. I asked him if Bernhard had any tattoos. He remembers several years ago talking with Bernhard who at the time was considering getting a fetish image of a leather bunny but as far as he knows, he never did it.