Shortly after we last spoke, I found myself draped on a sun-dappled patio. The vibe was euphoric, the way it can be when it’s Friday and the sunset’s hitting just right (and you’ve somehow managed to score a primo dinner rez at Pijja Palace without selling an organ). I was sipping a chilled red with my friend Sof when talk turned to tattoos.
“Every bad bitch I know has a star tattoo,” she said, snapping a photo of mine for her collection. We ran through our list of friends who have them (some mutuals, all verified bbs) and agreed - it seemed to be a rite of a passage for a certain type of girl.
My star lives in the cove between my right pointer finger and thumb, an outline about an inch wide. It was my first tattoo and I got it when I lived in Paris. Paris has been on my mind recently (more often than usual, it’s always on my mind) because I’m heading there in a week (and now in a very different stage of my life). I was twenty, my best friend Katie was leaving Paris for an internship and I was gonna stay on and fuck around for the summer (which I absolutely did - and it was one of the best, most formative summers of my life).
Katie and I bonded because, unlike everyone else in our program, we had loftier aspirations than getting drunk on lukewarm beer at the American bars. We matched each other’s freak and we were in Paris, the city was our huitre! So we ate it up. We blistered our feet stomping over cobblestones in stilettos. We crashed parties. We drank so many frozen Barons, it’s shocking neither of us have tooth decay. We skipped class to stay at a friend’s villa for Cannes. We call each other Koop till this day, after the iconic Kooples campaign (featuring couples) that were plastered all over the city because we saw those duos and thought, hey that’s us! And then one day, her return to the States was imminent, which sobered us up. This was an end of an era, how would we memorialize this chapter? It had to be something permanent, something we could share. A tattoo felt right.
Growing up, my parents (like most I suppose) were vocally adamant against tattoos and auxiliary piercings, something I found very funny considering mehndi (henna) and nose rings are canon in South Asian culture. I’d already expressly gone against their wishes by getting a belly button ring at fifteen. I knew that as a minor, this would be a trickier endeavor in Texas, so I waited till I was on a school trip to Spain. On our last day, I snuck out of the hotel and made my way to a part of Madrid that I assumed would have what I was looking for. I wish I remember how I researched this or where I went, but these details have long since faded from the annals of my memory. What I do remember is walking up and down the street, passing a parlor that, to me, seemed legit. I must’ve been a sight, a slip of a girl in a pink angora sweater and denim cutoffs, peeking in. Finally, a very large man, dressed entirely in leather (including a cut-off vest and beret) walked out. He had a lush beard, was covered in tats and his ear game was on point. He was a walking advertisement for his work and I wasn’t about to waste his time. I motioned to my belly button and then to a row of rings on the wall. Realizing I didn’t speak Spanish, he motioned for me to follow him.
As I was lying in a backroom, shorts unbuttoned low and shirt pulled up, I started to realize this could be a very bad situation. Before I could bolt, he came back in with his tools. I remember him leaving the door open (which I appreciated) and making a big show that everything was clean, that all his tools were freshly sealed. Safety routine out of the way, he held up my chosen piercing, a magenta gem stone set in silver. We nodded approvingly at each other - great choice -and I began to feel better.
Then he took out the biggest needle I’d ever seen.
When I decide I’m going to do something, I have to see it to completion. But this didn’t look like a needle that should ever come close to the human epidermis, much less go through it. It looked like a knitting needle. I’d only fainted once in my life but I could feel the second time approaching like a bullet train. I sat up very quickly. I probably would’ve screamed but I felt dizzy and besides, my throat was very dry. Plus, this man had been nothing but nice to me. I could sense his eyes on me, but I was embarrassed and felt childish (which I guess, I was). I would’ve defaulted to my trusted self-defense mechanism (humor!) but the language barrier posed a problem. The man gently patted my leg; it didn’t feel creepy, just reassuring, touch is a universal language. I apologized and looked at the piercing again; it was stunning. So I laid back down and nodded that I was ready. He clamped the skin, I inhaled, felt a pinch - and the next time I looked down, I had a belly button ring. Voila. We smiled at each other, I paid and skipped outta there, feeling deliciously naughty.
Even looking back now, I marvel at how sterile and formulaic it was, completely at odds with how rebellious it felt. Yes, it did get a little infected (flying home seated for 13+ hours with a fresh piercing will do that) but it cleared up quickly. What was scarier was telling my mum. I attempted to gloss over the scenario by presenting her with a very chic silk scarf I’d bought as a souvenir. Then I raised my tee. She gasped, the blood draining from her face.
“Wait till your dad sees that.”
In any case, by the time I found myself seated in a tattoo parlor off Rue Tiquetonne, my belly button piercing had long been removed, fad faded. There the two of us were, slightly tipsy from a massive happy hour piscine we’d drank for liquid courage. Katie confidently gave her specs (a date in roman numerals for the top of her foot) while I was still toying over what to do. I’d decided to get two, to maximize my time, and had already drawn out a heart-shaped infinity sign that looked like an 8 (my lucky number). But what else. Another heart felt redundant, my initials boring. Then I remembered a photo of Gisele I’d seen in a tabloid. Gisele may be a wellness queen now, but she was an aughts baddie, all tanned limbs, tousled leonine hair, a constant ciggie perched between her lips. For all this bravado though, Gisele was far from her native Brazil in New York, and spoke about being terribly homesick, something I could relate to. I was already on a trajectory that ensured I’d likely never live in the same city, or even continent, as my parents. Gisele got a star so she could pray to it; I wasn’t as religious, but I liked the idea of feeling cosmically connected to myself, my parents, my home. So a star it was.
My husband likes to tease me that my tattoos are “hard,” that a hand tat is the first thing someone sees in a job interview (neither of us work corporate jobs). If I’m being honest, I mostly forget I have them. Sometimes on jobs, I have to let production know, and a makeup artist will cover them up if needed, but that’s about as much fanfare as they elicit. I always thought those first two would be the gateway drug to a body littered with them, but it would be years before I’d get my next. It was last summer, a glorious LA summer day when I walked into a friend’s party. Someone had set up a stick-and-poke station with a few designs displayed. Among them was a really beautiful, simple rose.
I can’t explain what came over me. I’d lived a stone’s throw from Melrose Ave and the Venice boardwalk for a long time, both littered with tattoo parlors, yet I’d never felt the urge. But in that moment, I thought about my aunt who’d passed away when I was in college. My Amrit phua always made me feel loved, special and seen. When we first moved back to Malaysia, she’d take time off to take me to the zoo and over the years, spoiled me with little gifts (she favored delicate pieces of jewelry, like butterflies and fairies). I was a flower girl in her wedding when I was seven and that responsibility and honor made me feel invincible. I sometimes felt weird about how much I missed her; she had a daughter of her own and a husband who felt her loss so much deeper and more profoundly than I ever could (as did her nine siblings, and my grandmother, all of whom had outlived her). But I did and I still do. “Amrit, a rose and always a rose,” I’d heard many times over the years.
So I sat down and asked for the rose, which now lives on my inner ankle (she liked to tease me about my high heels, my ankles wobbling in them). In that moment, it made a long-seated grief feel tangible, turned it into something concrete I could see and feel. I think of her every time I look at it, just like I think about a turning point of my life, that summer in Paris, and of one my dearest friends. Tattoos are forever, sure, but so are those memories, and I think that’s beautiful. 🌹
THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ME
Victoria Beckham is not only a former pop star, but has parlayed that into a successful clothing and beauty brand, snagged a gorgeous footballer husband with whom she shares a brood of beautiful children and most importantly, possesses a truly wicked sense of humor (her line read of “the little Gucci dress” in Spice World? Dust off an Oscar). She cemented icon status, for me, reliving her Spice Girl days with a rendition of “Stop” with her best mates at her 50th birthday party, before ending the night being carried out by aforementioned doting husband. All hail!
STILL THINKING ABOUT
STOP what you’re doing (fine, finish reading this first) and put on We Are Lady Parts right now! Seriously! On the surface, Lady Parts is about an all-women Muslim punk band, but it’s so much more - it’s a meditation on fitting in, the creative process, artistic integrity and sisterhood. It’s funny, it’s powerful, you’ll be tempted to binge it in one sitting, but savor it if you can. It’s no secret I’m a fan of Nida Manzoor, whose storytelling skills and writing always fire on all cylinders (only amplified by stellar performances from the entire cast), but this truly is a perfect, perfect show.
WHO IS SHE
There’s a lot to love from Alessandro Michele’s debut for Valentino (which dropped Monday morning) but this is my favorite look from his pre-spring 2025 collection. It’s somehow giving both meanest girl on the playground and the most imperious Italian matriarch at the farmer’s market (her valet is carrying the cart, ofc). Toddler chic, all grown up.
FRIDAY BOP ALERT 🚨
To wrap up this celebration of bad girls, let’s pour one out for the grande dame of French pop. RIP to the legend Françoise Hardy, the ultimate cool girl, who passed away at the age of 80 earlier this month. In addition to her wildly prolific discography, Hardy was also an astrology girlie (studying it in her later years), an author and she wore the hell out of every Paco Rabanne piece she put on.
My pick today is V.I.P., a simultaneously upbeat-yet-melancholic post-modern disco bop about guilty pleasures. In anyone else’s hands, it could border on corny, but with Hardy, it retains a mysterious slinkiness, chipper without being cheesy.
This weekend I’ll be outdoors as much as possible, celebrating this break in the June gloom curse that’s been plaguing LA. Hope your weekend is as frolic-filled as mine 💐