Lifestyle Zone

Lifestyle. THEY may not be too everyone's taste, but saucy and flirtatious 1950s-style pin-up girls have become the tattoo of choice for many young women today.

Ask Mimsy Gleeson why a woman would want a tattoo of a pin-up girl writ large and bold in five colours across her body and she's lost for words.

Perhaps the question would have better been put as "Why not?"

The 31-year-old mother of two has a pair of 40cm-high, 1950s-inspired glamour girls etched either side of her ribs. She says she's extremely fond of that style of tattoo design, both on herself and on other people.

"For my generation, it's actually pretty normal for a woman to get a pin-up girl tattoo like mine," she says. "It's one of the more popular styles. And I love drawing them."

The former West End tattooist is so enamoured of the 1950s she has set up business as a mobile tattooist in a refurbished 1959 Qualicraft caravan complete with furniture from the era.

Mimsy's Trailer Trash Tattoo runs its business by appointment and at special events, such as GreazeFest, the Custom Culture festival, to be held in Brisbane from August 1 to 3.

Gleeson inks a pin-up girl on a female client about once a fortnight. Sizes vary but the average 25cm pin-up drawing in up to five colours would take two hours of work and cost about $300. "I guess it's because people regard the female form as really beautiful," Gleeson says.

"I mean, I wouldn't get a pin-up boy or anything like that, although I'm definitely heterosexual. I just don't think it would look any good. But the pin-up girls look really cute."

The pin-up genre is one of Gleeson's favourite styles of tattoo to draw.

Her designs come complete with 1950sinspired outfits, such as polka-dot bathing suits, and hairstyles kept in train with bandanas, ribbons and roses.

Back lace and cherries are among other recurring motifs.

Gleeson says the move back to '50s-inspired art is part of the huge interest in Sailor Jerry designs.

The designs of Sailor Jerry – real name Norman Collins (1911-1973) – such as his iconographic swallow with a sailor's cap, are instantly recognisable to most people as classic old-school-style tattoos.

The girls Sailor Jerry used to draw for the sailors who stumbled into his tattoo parlour in Honolulu's Chinatown area were always classically voluptuous and flirtatious.

However his designs in general are seen as bold and simple – part of the reason they've come to be regarded as classic images in the world of body-art tattooing. They're valued so highly that many are keen to have them as a permanent part of themselves.

For those who want something that can be taken off at the end of the day, however, Sailor Jerry, the brand of clothing, is available at Honor Lulu in Fortitude Valley.