Sailor Jerry

There Used To Be More Sailors In The World.

While some men set up comfortable homes in the suburbs and saved for better washing machines and lawn mowers, others set out to see the world through the hopped-up, wild eyes of shore leave. When they got back on the ship they had some stories to tell and some permanent artwork to boot. Back then, the prime tattoo site wasn't an ankle, it was a beefy forearm that informed all casual observers that you'd done things and been places that set you apart from the gray flannel world.

If you really want a true classic, you'll have to go back in time and cross the ocean (unless yon live in Honolulu). That's where you'd find a guy with a white tee shirt, an oily grey pompadour and heavily tattooed arms, once known to seamen and still known to tattoo aficionados as "Sailor Jerry." He's the man many see as the father of the deftly crafted, boldly lined, balls-forward Old School Tattoo. The kind fueled by the devil-may-care appetites of men far away from home.

Sailor Jerry was tagged with the name Norman Collins at birth, but he began to distance himself from normalcy/ normancy when he was 19 (that's why he became a sailor). He traveled around the world, not only getting his first tattoos, but also gaining exposure to the art and imagery of Southeast Asia. This later became a crucial influence when he opened his first tattoo shop in Honolulu's Chinatown, ground zero for swaggering sailors, drunken soldiers and whoever else wasn't afraid to hang around volatile levels of testosterone.

Sailor Jerry left this world in 1973, but his designs live on both on the flsh of those he tattooed and in the Sailor Jerry clothing range which takes inspiration from Jerry's tattoo flash.

http://www.sailorjerry.com

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