Tattooing is one of the world’s oldest forms of traditional art. But what is the most expensive tattoo in the world? That title belongs to Shimansky, a South African jewelry designer and retail chain with eight domestic stores and four international locations. The “tattoo” (pictured below) was actually a marketing gimmick by the luxury jeweler. Composed of 612 diamond stones at a half caret each, this $924,000 temporary tattoo was adhered to South African model Minki van der Westhuizen–who happens to be Shimansky’s brand model–over the course of eight long hours. The final design was a glittering floral pattern stretched across Westhuizen’s upper back and has been featured in a number of Shimansky advertisements and marketing campaigns. The South African jeweler is also famous for it’s diamond soccer ball, revealed for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which was fully encrusted with 2,640 black diamonds and 6,620 white diamonds for a total weight of 3,500 carets. Shimansky’s famous clients include Bill Clinton, Lee Ryan, Charlize Theron, and Christina Aguilera, and for close to $1 million, the luxury retail chain is actually offering to recreate the world’s most expensive tattoo for its clients at any one of its 12 locations.
A form of body modification made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the skin’s pigment, tattooing has been practiced for centuries in a number of different cultures throughout the world. The oldest evidence of extant tattooing on preserved skin dates as far back as 6,000 B.C. on a South American Chinchorro mummy in Peru, showing a thin pencil moustache tattooed onto the upper lip of a male adult. The Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan, traditionally had facial tattoos, while tattooing is also said to have been popular among certain ethnic groups in southern China, Polynesia, Africa, Borneo, Cambodia, Europe, the Mentawai Islands, Mesoamerica, New Zealand, North and South America, the Philippines, Iron Age Britain, and Taiwan. The first documented professional tattoo artist in Britain was established in the port of Liverpool in the 1870s, where tattoos were largely associated with sailors and the lower class. Eventually, tattoos became popular among the upper classes and made their way over to the United States. Since the 1970s, tattoos–which used to be associated with cultural and even criminal subcultures–have since become a mainstream part of Western fashion and currently represent a unique form of art, style, and expression.
For more information on the South African jeweler Shimansky and the Diamond Experience, visit www.shimansky.com.
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