I slide down into a warm burgundy leather couch beside a heated fireplace. In front of me is a mantlepiece covered in trinkets and adorned with the flickering of candle flames. No, I am not in your favourite Granny’s living room. I am in Black Hat Tattoo Parlour.

For those of you who have never had a tattoo done, it’s kind of a big deal. I mean, it’s there forever right? You want to be sure that what you’re getting is really good. But you also want to feel comfortable, and trust the person who is making their mark on your body.

The minute I walk into Black Hat Tattoo Parlour on Parnell Street, I feel welcome. I am here with Lena and Sergy, partners in business – and in real life. Lena is a tall, attractive woman from France, with striking eyes, the color of an iceberg.

“We met in front of Izakaya bar one night,” she laughs. “We started talking and, before I knew it, I was making a lot more trips from France to Dublin. For me, this is my first business. We’ve been doing this for two years now, but Sergy had his own venture before I came along.” “It kind of started when I was 14,” Sergy acknowledges. “I was drawing all the time when I was a kid living in my home town in Russia. My friends liked my drawings a lot – and then one day, a boy asked me to do his tattoo. We researched what it was you needed, to do a tattoo, and made it happen. Then, more and more kids wanted me to do their tattoos! “It was kind of crazy really because I was just a kid myself,” he smiles. “But I loved it.”

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FASCINATING MIX

Sergy left Russia and arrived in Dublin when he was 20. “I came here to learn English, and was trying to improve it all the time,” he recounts. He continued to develop his style, tattooing within the Russian and eastern European community.

Having become fluent in English, he felt that the time was right to make his living from his great passion. He discussed it with Lena. They decided to go for it together, and opened their own shop. They found a space around the corner from where they are now and opened the doors. With Lena in charge of business strategy, communications, sales and finance, they forged successfully ahead. Within a year, they were flat out and Sergy could no longer take care of the clients alone, so they started to build the team.

“It is the same team now that we built from scratch,” he says. “There’s Ceri, James, Mael, Lena and myself. It was really important to us to have a good team. We work together all day – so it’s also important that we all get along, because we are all in the same room.”

Lena and Sergy regularly invite guest tattoo artists to come to the shop and work for up to a month. “The idea with the guest artist is that we learn from each other. Usually they are European, but they can be from anywhere.”

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The most important consideration is quality – which is a hallmark of everything they do at The Black Hat.

“I think it says a lot about the artist,” Sergy adds, “if they are diverse and can do any style: watercolor, dots, lines, realistic, cartoons – whatever. The best artists will have two or three styles that they are good at.”

“As an artist, when you are good at two or three styles, you are able to create unique designs,” Lena says. “You can mix the knowledge you have to serve your art – but also to serve your clients. This is what is exciting about tattooing. It is a rich art in itself – and the possibilities are endless.”

Lena and Sergy love the North side and the fascinating mix of cultures and shops that mingle in the Parnell Street and Capel Street area. The studio is in a corner building, so there’s a lot of windows with plenty of light coming in. There is a waiting area by the entrance, with couches and a fireplace to make you feel at home, where you can watch the world go by, and chill-out while you wait. It’s a great spot.

TALENTED HANDS

And things are going very well. Can we expect to see a Black Hat No. 2 anytime soon?

“Well, if it keeps going like this, then yeah, I think another will happen,” Sergy says. “I would like something across the river, on the other side, as well.” Sergy says this with the kind of confidence which suggests that he knows it is going to happen – when the time is right. “You don’t get to where we are in just two years by luck or magic,” Lena says. “We believe that passion leads to excellence. It is about having the right skills, hard work and a bunch of really talented people working together effectively.”

The enduring beauty of Black Hat Tattoo is that it’s like going to your friend’s house, hanging out and leaving with a tattoo – kind of what I imagine it was like, when Sergy started tattooing his teenage friends. One of the other tattoo artists James, gives me a friendly nod. “Of all the jobs I’ve had,” he explains, “this is the first one that makes waking up in the morning feel really worthwhile. I love it here, we’re like family.”

Black Hat Tattoo is a studio where you can really feel comfortable – and also rest assured that you’re in good, caring and very talented hands. They’re only around the corner from the new Hot Press office, so it feels kinda tempting: a little lunch time tattoo, and a chat, sounds like a very good idea indeed! See you down there.

Black Hat Tattoo
11 Parnell St, North City, Dublin 1
theblackhattattoo.com