Magazine of the Week

Welcome back!

This week’s Mag o’ the Week is Inked. I’m really excited that we were able to subscribe to this because tattoo art has been so important in fashion and pop-culture for the last fifteen years. Body modification is an important piece of the fashion picture* and often overlooked. The magazine isn’t being widely connected by the library community (you have to go to Ohio for the next nearest library that carries it), so I am especially proud that we do.

This title began in 2004, but ownership of the company changed hands twice between by 2007 and publishing was sporadic. Since then, the title has published 8-10 times a year and the brand has established a corresponding media presence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The magazine features innovative tattoo artists, themed editorials of tattoo styling, plus interviews and photo layouts of dramatic ink on tatooed models. Advertising content includes both artist supplies as well music and accessories for the tattoo/goth/metal sort of iconoclast. These are not ad campaigns that make it into high-fashion glossies, so this perspective is useful for a lot of FIT majors studying print.

 

 

One cool thing about the editorials is that the models have to be “real” people in order for the concept to work. This is offset by the fact that a skin-based art means there’s a lot of nudity, and, by definition, objectification of bodies. I’d be interested to hear from women and men active in the tattooed communities about how this publicity falls on the spectrum from “sexist objectification” to “female sexual empowerment”.

Either way the art is gorgeous!

http://www.inkedmag.com/

 

If you are interested in tattoos and tattoo art, we have a wider selection of research in our books collections, which you can see here:

http://fit.sunyconnect.suny.edu:4690/F/?func=find-e&find_scan_code=FIND_WSU&request=tattoos

*”Dress should encompass anything individuals do to modify, add to, enclose, or supplement the body.”

Eicher Joanne, and Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins. “Describing Dress: A System of Classifying and Defining.” In Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning in Cultural Context, edited by R. Barnes and J. B. Eicher, 8–28. Oxford and Washington, DC: Berg, 1992. (Reprinted in paperback, 1993.)

https://libproxy.fitsuny.edu:2648/products/berg-fashion-library/encyclopedia/berg-encyclopedia-of-world-dress-and-fashion-global-perspectives/history-and-development-of-fashion