Tattoo Iconography: Pin Ups
- Livia Michael
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Greetings, internet! It’s Livia Michael again! As I continue learning and growing throughout my journey as an apprentice at Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles, I am finding myself drawn to certain aesthetics and iconography in tattooing. One such thing is pin ups! The term gets thrown around a lot, especially in this industry. But what exactly is a ‘pin up’?
A pin up can be defined by Merriam-Webster, as ‘a photograph of an attractive person (such as an actress or model) that is hung or pinned on a wall.’
Typically these images portray partially clothed or nearly nude women in erotic poses and positions. The pin up is thought to be derived from the early twentieth century, ‘Gibson Girl’, which was one of the first portrayals of a woman on a poster, rather than in an art gallery. Pin ups usually were published in magazines and calendars. This made them more accessible to the everyday person, as the images could literally be ‘pinned up’ on the wall.
Pin ups reached a peak of popularity during World War II, and served as a means of comfort, excitement, and hope for soldiers that were starved of romantic interaction amidst the isolation of war. It is not surprising that the popularity of tattooing was surging during this time, and therefore, this iconography became woven into the very fiber of the American Traditional tattoo aesthetic.
However, the U.S. military did have certain
modesty standards for these kinds of tattoos depicting women, demanding that obscene or pornographic pin up tattoos would prohibit a man’s eligibility for service. In this case, such pin ups were modified to have clothing, but the overall pattern began to emerge of a more suggestive, tasteful woman. Thus, the trademark pin up began to be identified as a big-breasted, curvy woman, with a playful, flirtatious look in her eyes. She is normally wearing clothes that are sexy and accentuate her figure, but keeps the private areas covered.
Nowadays, the pin up does not limit itself to one thing or one look. With the resurgence of the American Traditional and Neo-Traditional tattoo aesthetics, as well as the onslaught of the Japanese Anime tattoo style depicting voluptuous, eroticized women, the world of pin up tattoos has expanded and become increasingly popular with a new generation of tattoo clients around the world.
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