Tattoos (unless you’re planning on extensive, painful surgery) are for life. They’re also entirely personal, meaning something individual to each person – unless you’re, like, BFFs Jourdan Dunn and Cara Delevingne, who have just unvieled their new, matching tats to the world.
The models, who nickname themselves the Double D’s – after the shared ‘d’ at the beginning of both their surnames – decided to get the doubled-up letters tattooed on their hips in elaborate italic font. Instagramming the photo of their hips, bordered with their hands making a heart in their hands, Cara added the caption, ‘So happy we got our DDs!...#throwsomedsonthat #DDs4life’
UPDATE: They had the whole thing filmed, as you can see on this episode of Well Dunn With Jourdan Dunn, Jourdan's web series (if you didn't already get that by the name) and you can watch it here:
Time will tell whether the girls, aged just 21 and 22, will remain friends for life, and maybe one day technology will be such that, even if they do hate each other, they can just whip off the tattoo in a couple of tingly almost-painful removal sessions. But in the meantime, what’s the reality of getting a shared tattoo with a friend? Whether it’s done on the spur of the moment after getting a bit drunk, or a well-thought out plan that only gets going after the drunken chat on the dancefloor of a nightclub, what are the politics of this very new sort of friendship ritual?
The girls with the :/ tattoos
Sarah, 24, from Leeds and Zoe, 25, from Liverpool, got matching tattoos of the emoticon :/ on their feet. They decided to do it because they kept on using :/ in their texts. ‘It was back in the days of Blackberry's when :/ was the only emoticon that remained as it was typed and didn't change into a smiley,’ Zoe says. The decision to actually get ink pressed indelibly into their skin for eternity came about ‘in the middle of a nightclub’. They called the tattoo artist, who Zoe had met a year earlier in Ibiza, that night, then changed their Facebook statuses ‘so we couldn’t back out hungover’ and the next day they went and got them done. It’s such a firm reminder of their uni days that other members of their friendship group swore they’d follow suit (they’ve since wimped out).
The girls with the Potter tattoos
Emma, 25, and Livvy , 24, both from London, call their tattoos of the Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter a ‘permanent joke that just got out of hand’. Again, they were totally hungover when they went to get theirs done. Livvy went first because, she says, ‘I knew I might chicken out after seeing Emma have hers, and she would have killed me!’
She’s still not 100% about it. ‘Half the time I LOVE it, sometimes I think it looks stupid. It’s a conversation starter, that’s for sure.’ It certainly broke the ice when she went on the first date with her new boyfriend. ‘He laughed for a full ten minutes when I told him what it was on our first date. It didn’t stop him taking me out again, though…’
The girls with the Havoc tattoos
Fiona, 25 and her friend Cat, 24, got their ‘Havoc A’ and ‘Havoc B’ tattoos on the tops of their thighs after a drunken night with an unnamed band on a tour bus in North Carolina. ‘What happened that night will stay between us,’ Fiona says, but it ‘makes the tattoos even more meaningful!’
Though the decision to get the tattoos done was spontaneous, they’d had the design in mind for ages. ‘At school we’d sit and draw matching designs and this carried on into our university years, where we’d scribble designs after a few drinks.’ When it came to getting the inking, Fiona went first, because she’s older. ‘I think if one of us had chickened out, it would have been fine, but we like to stick together and neither of us has ever left the other high and dry.’
**The six friends with (almost) matching elephant tattoos **
Molly and six of her friends, all in their twenties, got elephant tattoos when they went to visit a friend studying medicine in Budapest. ‘We’re not really sure where the elephants thing came from, someone just said they liked them and we all agreed,’ Molly tells us. ‘We all got them a bit different, because we couldn’t decide on a final design. It’s nice they’re all unique, though – it reflects how we are different as people.’
They’re a disparate group of pals. ‘We met through lots of different ways, so we’ve always had to put the effort into seeing each other and planning things to do. Now we’ve got one of the group in Budapest and some at uni, it’s more difficult to see each other often, but we all still talk most days.’
However, there was quite an intense closeness when they got their inkings done. ‘We all held each others’ hands whilst we were getting them done, and the tattooist let us choose our own music to listen to.’ And, considering taking a group of friends on holiday is a bit like herding cats at the best of times, they were smart to book the tattoo parlour within a few days of being in Budapest – no drunken post-bar-crawl stumble into a tattoo parlour for these lot.’
So there we have it, booze, buddies, tattoos, and only the slightest hint of regret.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.