CC'd

I was waiting for a friend near Wall Street the other day and I saw a guy (hip, late twenties, skinny) with a double C Chanel logo tattooed on his hand. Now, I'm gearing up to start a photography project where I take more photos of people, and I thought you guys might like to see his fashion devotee perma-stamp, so I politely asked him if I could take a pic of his couture ink. He looked at me and said, "No. I can't do that. It's private." Now, I'm all good when it comes to respecting the wishes of possible subjects for my photographs (I've learned my lesson), but I couldn't for the life of me understand how an inch x inch Chanel logo tattooed and on clear display on the upside of this guy's hand was "private". I walked away determined to investigate the matter. Is a Chanel tattoo the mark of some kind of underground cult? A political statement so radical that it could get this man deported if his hand were ever identified by a peruser of my blog? So far I haven't found any good evidence for a Chanel cult, outside of the cult of advertising. But, if the guy is in some radical underground fashion logo movement, then he's got company. I cannot believe how many CC tattoos there are on the Internets.

Now, we actually may be able to blame the house of Chanel and Kaiser Karl himself for this trend taking off. A recent ad campaign for the brand's eyeglass collection prominently featured a model decked in nothing but specs and a CC tat. And, this season's runway show saw models sporting logo and chain tattoos. The difference? Those are FAKE! Probably a good idea.

The eyewear ads.

Models at the SS2010 Chanel show sported RUB ON logo tattoos. Probably a smarter idea than those permanent ones...

Karl, your power over the masses is quite something.

All photos found in a Google Image search for Chanel tattoos.