For as long as men have been rolling up their sleeves, pin-up girl tattoos have made their way from the big screen and onto their forearms.
From sexy starlet Betty Grable to modern interpretations of vintage beauties, pin-up girl tattoos are a traditional form of old school art that can be traced back all the way back to World War II when overseas soldiers opted for these sexy women after lusting over their feminine whiles on calendars and posters that they’d “pin-up” on their walls and inside of tents.
Early pin-up girls were glamorous and seductive without revealing too much skin. Often bearing one-piece suits and at the most a bikini, their tasteful portraits started to bare skin little by little with each decade.
The original pin-up girls of the 1940s were Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Betty Grable. In the 1950s, Bettie Paige has named The Girl with the Perfect Figure thanks to her 5’5″ frame that weighed in at a perfect 128 lbs.
While she carried the same classic beauty as all the former pin-up girls, Bettie was quite a bit racier and opted for whips, topless poses, and exotic destinations for her modeling shoots. As she began to flaunt herself more, so did the tattoos that followed and soon pin-up styles came to include full nude portraits of women in all sorts of erotic stances.
Designing Your Pin-Up Girl
Today, pin-up girl tattoo style can vary from traditional old-school designs to more lustful and posed portraits of ladies wear nothing more than fishnets or corsets. Many artists are even pairing traditional pin-up girls with demonic or vampire-style details that include fangs, horns, and glowing eyes to create fantastical and horror-inspired pin-up women.
No matter your girl style, if you’re going for a pin-up tattoo, try to find the muse of a lady that you’ll never tire of. Whether it be a piece of art, a famous actress, or a loved one depicted into her own character tattoo, a pin-up girl should be forever beautiful to earn her place on your body.
Adding Details to a Previous Pin Up Tattoo
If you already have a pretty lady tattoo then why not dress her up? Old tattoos can be reinvented with ink so don’t let your lady lose her sex appeal over time.
Adding a new bikini or a flower in her hair is just one way you can dress modify or change an existing tattoo without sacrificing the original design idea too much. You can also add other graphic images such as hot rod cars, clouds, or a fence post so that she can prop herself in a seductive pose just for you. Change her heels, add nail polish or add some length to her tresses. Add a headscarf, change her from nude to all dressed up in a lace-up teddy filled with frills and ruffles.
Customize Your Tattoo
When you ink a pin-up girl you can truly create the girl of your dreams. While you can follow some of the more celebrated forms of pin-up tattoos for inspiration from her bust and waist measurements to her hair color and length, you can create the sexiest and dreamiest of women on earth.
So long as you can afford the tattoo art, she’ll be yours forever.
Iskra Banović is our seasoned Editor-in-Chief at BlueFashion. She has been steering the website's content and editorial direction since 2013. With a rich background in fashion design, Iskra's expertise spans across fashion, interior design, beauty, lifestyle, travel, and culture.
