The New York Times ran an article in their Thursday Fashion & Style section about neck and hand tattoos becoming more mainstream and therefore more acceptable, specifically in the workforce. The article cited such overtly inked tax-paying citizens such as a director of a social service agency, a pediatric physical therapist and fashion model Freja Beha (pictured above).
“Necks and hands, said Joshua Lord, an owner of East Side Ink on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, were the last taboo. Now it is common for customers to seek them, he said. ‘Before it was people in industries that are forgiving,’ he said, meaning principally music or art. ‘But recently I’ve done them for doctors and funeral directors and teachers, and a lot of hairdressers,’ who use hand tattoos as conversation starters, he said.”
An editor of a tattoo journal went as far as to say that this growing trend of newbies going straight to the neck and hand tattoos was causing resentment from the tattoo community. I don’t know about all that but this same editor also observes that while artists used to shy away from doing these areas, they’re now embracing the “always visible” tattoos.