Tattoo

Tattoo (pronounced ta-too)

(1) A signal on a drum, bugle, or trumpet at night, for soldiers or sailors to go to their quarters.

(2) A knocking or strong pulsation.

(3) In British military tradition, an outdoor military pageant or display, conducted usually at night.

(4) The act or practice of marking the skin with indelible patterns, pictures, legends, etc, by making punctures in it and inserting pigments.

(5) A pattern, picture, legend, etc so made.

1570–1580: An evolution from the earlier taptoo from the Dutch command tap toe! (in the literature also as taptoe) (literally “the tap(room) is to” (ie shut)).  Originally, the tattoo was a signal on a drum, bugle, or trumpet at night, for soldiers or sailors to go to their quarters, the musical form varying between regiments but all based on a knocking or strong pulsation; it was later it became an outdoor, usually nocturnal military pageant or display.  The usual abbreviations are tat and tatt (used most often in the plural) and the derived terms tend to be functionally deterministic (amalgam tattoo, henna tattoo, sleeve tattoo, tattoo flash, tattoo gun, tattoo tool, tattoo machine, tattoo parlor, tribal tattoo, tattoo artist, tattoo removal etc).  It's much more common for one who applies tattoos to be called a tattooist than a tattooer and tattooee (who who is tattooed) is rare to the point of being extinct.  Tattoo & tattooing are nouns & verbs, tattooist, tattooee, tattooer & tattooage are nouns, tattooed is a verb & adjective and tattoolike and tattooless are adjectives; the noun plural is tattoos.

The word was first used during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) in the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) where the Dutch fortresses were garrisoned by a federal army containing Scottish, English, German and Swiss mercenaries commanded by a Dutch officer corps.  Drummers from the garrison were sent into the towns at 21:30 (9:30 pm) each evening to inform the soldiers that it was time to return to barracks.  The process was known as doe den tap toe (Dutch for "turn off the tap"), an instruction to innkeepers to stop serving beer and send the soldiers home for the night although the drummers continued to play until the curfew at 22:00 (10:00 pm).  Tattoo and the earlier tap-too and taptoo, are alterations of the Dutch words tap toe which have the same meaning.  Taptoo was the earlier used alteration of the phrase and a reference was found in George Washington's papers: "In future the Reveille will beat at day-break; the troop at 8 in the morning; the retreat at sunset and taptoo at nine o'clock in the evening."  Over the years, the process became more of a show and often included the playing of the first post at 21:30 and the last post at 22:00.  Bands and displays were included and shows were often conducted by floodlight or searchlight. Tattoos were commonplace in the late nineteenth century with most military and garrison towns putting on some kind of show or entertainment during the summer months.

A Lindsay Lohan tattoo; the Italian phrase la bella vita translates as "life is beautiful".

The use to describe body marking dates from 1760–1770.  Tattoo, from the Marquesan tatu or the Samaon & Tahitian tatau (to strike) coming to replace the earlier tattow from the Polynesian tatau.  It took some time for tattoo to become the standardised western spelling, the OED noting the eighteenth century currency of both tattaow and tattow.  Before the adoption of the Polynesian word, the practice of tattooing had been described in the West as painting, scarring or staining and in 1900 British anthropologist Ling Roth in documented four methods of skin marking, suggesting they be differentiated under the names tatu, moko, cicatrix and keloid.  There was, between the Dutch and the British, a minor colonial spat about which deserves the credit for importing the word to Europe and while that sounds petty, the colonial powers usually could find something about which to disagree,

A “dot tattoo” on the skin of a patient undergoing radiation therapy with a US one cent (“penny”) coin for comparison.

The US penny has a diameter of ¾ inch (19.05 mm).  On 12 November 12, 2025, after a run of some 230 years, the last penny was minted at the Philadelphia Mint, the first coin the US Treasury has discontinued since the half-cent was discontinued in 1857.  The penny (1 cent) will remain a unit in financial transactions and with billions in circulation, the physical coin will still be legal tender; being metal, some will last for centuries.  There was a time when a penny could buy many things but, over time, they became close to worthless although there were still “penny stocks” (speculative investments in the equities markets), even many of them cost a few pennies a share.  The word will remain part of idiomatic use (”pennies in the dollar”; “penny-wise, pound poor” etc) but the coins, for years a rare sight, will become a curiosity.

Because the radiation therapy used to treat cancer gains its effectiveness from precise targeting of the location of a patient’s cancer site, a small “dot tattoo” is applied to the skin so at each session the body exactly is aligned with the machinery for each session.  By “sighting” the machine using the black dot, therapists can ensure the radiation is delivered to the targeted area.  Small and permanent, the tattoos are barely distinguishable from birthmarks but some patients subsequently choose to have them removed using conventional laser techniques and advances in have made possible tattoo-free radiation therapy using technologies like SGRT (Surface Guided Radiation Therapy).  SGRT uses unremarkable cameras and infrared light to create a 3D map of a patient's skin surface, meaning the device can use internally-generated grid (from thousands of reference points) co-ordinates to handle the positioning.  In certain cases however (notably in more complex cases where multiple dots are needed), tattoos remain the preferred option and while some opt to keep them, others have no wish to be reminded of the experience and have them removed.

Tan lines.

Tan lines are visible differentiations in hue separating a “tanned” area from the paler “untanned” skin; it’s created by sun exposure or an artificial source of UV (ultra violet) radiation and is the marker between where clothing, sunscreen or shade has blocked the UV rays which radiate the exposed skin.  Because such exposure is a documented risk-factor for skin cancer, intentionally seeking to be sunburnt to create fashionable tan lines is potentially harmful and many health warnings have been issued.  While the energy from the Sun makes possible life on Earth and humans benefit for some exposure, too much definitely can be dangerous so, when exposed, the recommendation is to use coverage, either with clothing or frequent application of a sunscreen (the higher the rated SPF (sun protection factor) the more effective it should be.  Probably, there’s never been a better encapsulation of strategy than the Australian “Slip, Slop Slap” public health campaign of 1981 (slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat).  It was an effective message but while the incidence of skin cancer has fallen, between half and two thirds of the Australian population will in their lifetime suffer at least one skin cancer.  Despite the numbers, tanning (with consequent tan lines) remains a popular pastime but fortunately, modern commerce saw a gap in the market and many beauticians will now emulate tan lines using (a usually spray-on form of) tanning lotion.

A tantoo.

The portmanteau word tantoo (the construct being tan + (tat)too) describes a tan line planned deliberately in the style of a tattoo and, in the abstract, it can be thought to have the same relationship to a tattoo that a negative has with a printed photograph.  Tantoo stickers are available in a variety of shapes and the look is achieved by placing the sticker on the skin in the desired spot, then inflicting sufficient sun damage on the surrounding area until the desired tone is achieved.  At that point the sticker is removed.  Tan lines have a place in cultural history because of the relationship between pale skin being associated with wealth (ie someone not toiling in the fields) and certain forms of “selective tanning” being linked with “the leisured class”.  In the late twentieth century tan lines emerged as a genuine aesthetic in the beauty industry and rather than seeking to conceal their presence, many dressed to in a way which made them a feature.

Loleia Swimwear’s Black Friday Sale campaign, November 2025.

Most tan lines are merely circumstantial although in niches they can be a thing, some adult sites now listing “tan lines” as a category.  So, variously they can be admired or pass barely noticed but we live in very sensitive times and an Australian swimwear brand in November 2025 received criticism for “glamourising sunburn”, a conclusion drawn by those outraged by Loleia Swimwear’s Black Friday Sale campaign.  What caused the angst was Loleia’s use of a photograph of a bronze-skinned model with LOLEIA 30% OFF STOREWIDE CODE: BLACKFRIDAY digitally added to her back in a way which looked as if the characters were in un-tanned skin (ie a tantoo).  Based in the Western Australian capital Perth (the world’s most isolated city according to urban geographers), Loleia is said to have become a cult favourite in the crowded swimwear business but being targeted by the skin police will have generated a level of brand-awareness it would otherwise have taken much effort and likely millions of dollars to attain.  Wisely, the brand did not respond to multiple requests for comment, presumably advised there was little to be gained for either defending or apologizing for the use of the image whereas letting the story play out was priceless (and free) publicity.

Token gesture #1: Loleia's website is lavishly stocked with images of models in swimwear but there seems to be only one carrying a container of sunscreen and, at SPF (Sun Protection Factor) 30 it's not the most protective available.  Note the admirable shoulder blade definition.

The CCWA’s (Cancer Council of Western Australia) SunSmart manager condemned the advertisement, saying: “It’s really concerning to see images like that, particularly targeting young people who might see that image and not realise that it might be a generated image.  We don’t want people to aspire to that kind of look – tanning causes damage to your skin, and it is skin cells in trauma.  Portraying and promoting images like that in the media is really not on … we’re really disappointed to see that kind of depiction.”  That must mean the SunSmart manager believes bikini-buying young women will assume an advertising agency would pay an appropriately-stickered model to lie for hours under the sun or a sunlamp to achieve the desired tantoo rather than spend a few minutes (or maybe seconds if generative AI (artificial intelligence) is used) photoshopping a stock image.  Perth may be isolated but the young folk there know about fake images.  In fairness, the CCWA did have a good point to make because tanning remains fashionable in Australia despite the country’s skin cancer rates being among the world’s highest, the sometimes lethal melanoma one of the most common cancers in Australians aged between 15-29 (ie the prime bikini-wearing demographic).

Token gesture #2 (DEI): Although the quota seems to have been set low, the site includes a handful of MoCs (models of color).

Cultural change can be achieved but nobody seems yet to have found the formula which to make youth perceive untanned skin as desirably attractive and the bronzed look as mere “skin damage”.  Historically, that was in many places the dominant narrative but that was when a tanned skin was associated with peasants toiling in the fields and a pale complexion reflected having the wealth and social status to “stay out of the sun”.  Social and economic shifts have changed things in that in the twentieth century tans became linked with leisure which, combined with a “beach culture” (certainly in sunny Australia) made bronzed skin a marker of youthful vitality.  “We’re really trying to change the culture that Australia has around the fact that tanning is desirable because we know that it just leads to skin cancer” the SunSmart manager was quoted as saying, adding “We’d really encourage brands and advertising agencies to consider how they’re depicting those behaviours in their materials – considering that it’s young people that they’re targeting, [it’s important] to think about how they can encourage them to do the right thing, particularly with swimwear brands.  We want to see just some positive reinforcement of the messages that we’ve been talking about for generations.”

Token gesture #3 (DEI): There was also a smattering of plus-size models (at the lower end of the spectrum).  As a general principle, the plus-size community is at higher risk of sun-induced skin damage because their surface area is greater.

The manager of Skin Collective (a Perth skincare clinic) concurred, saying “…advertising sunburn in any form was dangerous.  It’s a real concern that an advertising campaign is glamourising sunburn or tanning by showing it in a pattern.  Research has shown that actually it takes only one sunburn that blisters and causes a peel to double your melanoma likelihood or risk.  I definitely think a year ago, there was a significant messaging around making it trendy or cool to create tans.  We saw even people go as far as tattooing tan lines on their bodies, which is a real concern in a country that has the highest melanoma rates.  I think we need to take responsibility and understand that our marketing campaigns genuinely do influence trends – it’s important that your messaging is about sun safety, and we can do that by creating beautiful, curated campaigns that still [have a] SunSmart message.  We’re actually changing the health of a whole generation, and it’s really important for us to be those educators.”

Mostly though, the site's photography is on theme and the compositional standard high although what was striking (especially for a swimwear retailer) was the relative paucity of blonde hair and it may be this was done deliberately to disguise the lack of diversity.

The issue with tanning in Australia is not new.  In 2024, Ad Standards (the national regulator for advertising standards) found Fox Tan had, in a TikTok video, breached the AANA’s (Australian Association of National Advertisers) code of ethics regarding health and safety (advertisers have ethics, who knew?).  That case concerned a video of a woman lying on a sun lounge, the caption reading: “When they say it’s time to get out of the sun now but your tan just started to look good.”  According to Ad Standards, noting “…skin cancer affects a very large number of Australians over their lifetime and continues to lead to a high number of deaths every year”, the panel concluded “…the audience for the advertisement is likely to be younger Australians interested in tanning and considered that the messaging in this advertisement was especially dangerous for this group of people.”  However commendable her efforts, the CCWA’s SunSmart manager may be fighting a losing battle. 

In Japanese, the word irezumi means "insertion of ink" and is applied variously to tattoos using tebori (the traditional Japanese hand method, a Western-style machine or any method of tattooing using insertion of ink.  The most common word used for traditional Japanese tattoo designs is horimono although increasingly the word tattoo is used to describe non-Japanese styles of tattooing. Etymologists found tattoo intriguing because so many languages contain similar words, some appearing to have emerged independently of the others and anthropologists agree the practice of tapping on primitive instruments as a distractive device seems to have been a widespread practice while images were being made on the skin, the conclusion being some of the variations are likely onomatopoeic:

English: tattoo
Danish: tatovering
Italian: tatuaggio
Brazilian: tatuagem
Estonian: tatoveering
Romanian: tatuaj
Norwegian: tatovering
Māori: Ta moko
Swedish: tatuering
German: tatowierung
French: tatouage
Spanish: tatuaje
Dutch: tatoeage
Finnish: tatuointi
Polish: tatuaz
Portuguese: tatuagem
Lithuanian: tatuagem
Creol: tatouaz

Blowout

Blowout (pronounced bloh-out)

(1) A sudden puncturing of a pneumatic tyre.

(2) A sudden release of oil and gas from a well.

(3) In geology, a sandy depression in a sand dune ecosystem caused by the removal of sediments by wind.

(4) An extreme and unexpected increase in costs, such as in government estimates for a project (a popular Australian use although the budgetary outcomes are familiar just about everywhere).

(5) In medical slang, an act of defecation in which an incontinent person (usually an infant or toddler) produces a large amount of excrement that causes their diaper to overflow and leak (the companion slang the “poonami”).

(6) In engineering, the cleaning of the flues of a boiler from scale etc by blasting the surfaces with steam.

(7) In body-piercing, an unsightly flap of skin caused by an ear piercing that is too large.

(8) An instance of having one's hair blow-dried and styled.

(9) In tattooing, the blurring of a tattoo due to ink penetrating too far into the skin and dispersing.

(10) In woodworking, the damage done to the exit side of a drilled hole or sawn edge when no sacrificial backer-board is used during the drilling or sawing: the drill bit's or saw blade's exit on the far side causes chips of wood to be broken from the edge (sometimes called a “tearout”).

(11) In slang, a social function, especially one with extravagant catering.

(12) In slang, a large or extravagant meal.

(13) In slang, a sporting contest in which one side wins by an untypically wide margin; an overwhelming victory.

(14) In slang, an argument; an altercation.

(15) In Filipino slang, a party or social gathering.

1825: A creation of US colloquial English (the construct being blow + out) in the sense of “outburst, brouhaha” (and in a subtle linguistic shift such events would now, inter alia, be called a “blow-up”), from the verbal phrase, the reference being to pressure in a steam engine.  The elements “blow” and “out” both have many senses and the compound blowout is formed from the verb “blow” in the sense of “burst” or “explosion” plus the verb “out” in the sense of “eject or expel; discharge; oust”.  The verb blow was a pre-1000 form from the Middle English verb blowen, from the Old English blāwan (to blow, breathe, make a current of air, inflate, sound), from the Proto-West Germanic blāan, from the Proto-Germanic blēaną (to blow), from primitive Indo-European bhleh- (to swell, blow up) and may be compared with the Old High German blāen, the Latin flō (to blow) and the Old Armenian բեղուն (bełun) (fertile).  The verb out was from the pre-900 Middle English adverb out, from the Old English ūt (out, without, outside).  It was cognate with the Dutch uit, the German aus, the Old Norse & Gothic ūt and was akin to the Sanskrit ud-.  The Middle English verb was outen, from the Old English ūtian (to put out) and cognate with the Old Frisian ūtia.  Blowout is a noun; the noun plural is blowouts and the use as a verb non-standard.

The blowout as a source of irony.

Blowout is used as a modifier.  In retail commerce, a “blowout sale” is an event advertised as offering greater than usual discounts, with a real or notional intent to deplete the inventory.  Unlike the various uses in hairdressing, blowouts can be undesirable events and devices have been devised which prevent their unwanted occurrence: In electrical engineering a blowout coil (carrying an electric current) serves to deflect and thus extinguish an arc formed when the contacts of a switch part to turn off the current and in the messy business of drilling for oil, a “blowout preventer” is placed at the surface interface of an oil well to prevent blowouts by closing the orifice, allowing material to flow from the oil reservoir out through the shaft.  By contrast, in hairdressing, variants of the blowout deliberately are part of the process and in one use blowout is a generic descriptor of the taper fade (of which there are several variants.  There’s also the Brazilian blowout, a method temporarily to achieve straightening the hair by sealing a liquid keratin and preservative solution into the hair with a styling wand (hair iron).

1969 Ford Falcon GTHO #60 (Fred Gibson (b 1941) & Barry “Bo” Seton (b 1936)) on its roof after a blowout of the right-rear tyre, Mount Panorama, Bathurst, Australia. 

In motorsport there have been some famous tyre blowouts and in Australia, in 1969, it was exactly that which doomed the first appearance at Bathurst of the Falcon GTHO, a car purpose-built for the event with “a relief map of the Mount Panorama circuit in one hand and a bucket of Ford’s money in the other”.  As it would prove in subsequent years, the GTHO was ideal for the purpose but in 1969 the choice of some then exotic US-made Goodyear racing tyres proved an innovation too far, one of several blowouts resulting in a Ford works car ending on its roof.  Being an anti-clockwise circuit, it was the right-had tyres which were subject to the highest loads and, built for racing, the Phase I GTHOs were set-up to oversteer, further increasing the wear.  For next year, Ford doubled down, the Phase II GTHOs famous for their prodigious oversteer but this time the suspension was tuned to suit the tyres.

As a routine procedure, a “steam blowout” is carried out to remove the debris from superheaters and re-heaters that accumulate during manufacturing and installation, the purpose being to prevent damage to turbine blades and valves.  In the usual course of operation, a “blowout” is the release of excessive steam (ie pressure) via a “blow-off valve”.  The meaning “abundant feast” dates from 1824 while that of “the bursting of an automobile tire” was in use by at least 1908.  The alternative forms blow-out & blow out are also in use, especially when applied to tyres and the un-hyphenated from was chosen for the title of Blow Out (1981), a movie by US director Brian De Palma (b 1940)in which the plot hinged on whether it was a gunshot which caused a tyre to blow out.

Manfred von Brauchitsch in Mercedes-Benz W25B (#7) in front of the pits at the end of 1935 German Grand Prix, Nürbugring, 28 July 1935.  The left-rear tyre which suffered a last-lap blowout has disintegrated, the car driven to fourth place on the rim for the final 7 km (4.4 miles).

The most famous blowout however was that which happened on the last lap of the 1935 German Grand Prix, run before 220,000 spectators in treacherously wet conditions on the Nürbugring circuit in the Eifel mountains, then in its classic and challenging pre-war configuration of 22.7 km (14.1 miles).  The pre-race favourites were the then dominant straight-8 Mercedes-Benz W25s and V16 Auto Union Type Bs (both generously subsidized by the Nazi state) but, powerful, heavy and difficult to handle in wet conditions, their advantages substantially were negated, allowing what should have been the delicate but out-classed straight-8 Alfa Romeo P3s to be competitive and in the gifted hands of the Italian Tazio Nuvolari (1892–1953), one won the race.  The last lap was among the most dramatic in grand prix history, the Mercedes-Benz W25B of Manfred von Brauchitsch (1905–2003) holding a winning lead until a rear-tyre blowout, the car limping to the finish-line on a bare rim to secure fourth place.  Von Brauchitsch was the nephew of Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch (1881–1948), the imposing but ineffectual Oberbefehlshaber (Commander-in-Chief) of OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres (the German army's high command)) between 1938-1941.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Vogue Czechoslovakia, May 2025, photographed by the Morelli Brothers.

That there should be a Vogue Czechoslovakia despite the state of Czechoslovakia ceasing to be after 31 December 1992 may seem strange but the publication does exist and is sold in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  Launched in 2018, it was the first edition of Vogue published in either country and the title was an obvious choice for Condé Nast because in addition to the shared cultural heritage, there were no negative associations with the name “Czechoslovakia”; so amicable was the 1992 separation of the two states it was styled the “Velvet Divorce”.  Other attractions included branding & recognition (“Czechoslovakia” still enjoying strong international recognition because the component elements of the name have been retained by the new states so it has not passed into history like “Yugoslavia” when it broke up amidst war and slaughter) and the economies of scale gained by producing a single edition for two markets.  That reflects a general industry trend, the Czech Republic & Slovakia often treated as a single media market because of their (1) linguistic similarity, (2) cultural overlap and shared (though often troubled) history.  It worked out well for Conde Nast because they got a retro-modern identity evocative of a culturally rich past with a contemporary twist.

Lindsay Lohan’s Almond Milk Upper East Blowout hairstyle, Vogue Czechoslovakia, May 2025.

Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 when the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs was dissolved and in this form it existed until dismembered progressively, beginning with the well-intentioned but shameful Munich Agreement in 1938.  After World War II (1939-1945), Czechoslovakia was re-established under its pre-1938 borders (with the exception of Carpathian Ruthenia, which became part of Soviet Union) but its fate was sealed when in 1948 the Communist Party (approved by comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) staged a coup and seized power, integrating the country behind the Iron Curtain into the Moscow-centric Eastern Bloc joining Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, a kind of “Marshall Plan by rubles”) in 1955 and the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet’s counterpoint to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1955.  An uprising in 1968 (the so called “Prague Spring”) seeking political & economic liberalization ruthlessly was crushed by Russian tank formations sent by Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982; Soviet leader 1964-1982) and it wasn’t until 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the people peacefully overthrew Communist Party rule in what was labelled the “Velvet Revolution”, thus the adoption of “Velvet Divorce” to describe the unusually quiet (and not at all bloody) constitutional separation of the two sovereign states.

Lindsay Lohan in halter neck black dress with white bodice and stylized bow, her Upper East Blowout under an outrageously extravagant tulle hat, Vogue Czechoslovakia, May, 2025.

The Hairstyle used for Lindsay Lohan’s Vogue cover shoot is known as the “Upper East Blowout”, designed deliberately to evoke the glamour of the stars from the golden age of Hollywood (essentially the 1930s-1950s) and the particular one worn by Ms Lohan specifically was called an “Almond Milk Upper East Blowout”, a construct which seems an intriguing piece of subliminal marketing.  “Almond Milk” was a obviously an allusion to the color but the fluid is also a pleasingly expensive (an important association in product-positioning) and trendy alternative to the mainstream dairy offerings with obvious appeal to vegetarians, vegans and animal rights activists.  For some it can be a wise choice, nutritionists noting (unsweetened) almond milk is a good source of vitamin-E and is lower in calories, protein, sugar and saturated fat while cow’s milk is more nutrient-dense and higher in protein, naturally containing lactose and saturated fats.  Because of that, fortification is essential for almond milk to match dairy milk’s micro-nutrient content but for those choosing on the basis of their dietary regime (vegans, the lactose intolerant etc), unsweetened, fortified almond can be a healthy option.  The “Upper East Side” element is a reference to the neighborhood in the borough of New York City’s (NYC) Manhattan.  Because of the vagueness in NYC’s neighborhood boundaries (they’re not officially gazetted), opinions vary as to where the place begins and ends but in the popular (and certainly the international) imagination, “Upper East Side” is most associated with places such as Fifth Avenue and Central Park which lie to the west.  While New Yorkers may not always know exactly what the Upper East Side is, they have no doubts about which parts definitely are NOT UES.  Long regarded as the richest and thus most prestigious of the New York boroughs, by the late nineteenth century informally it was known as the “silk stocking district”, the idea reflected still in the desirable real estate, expensive shops along Madison Avenue and its cluster of cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection and the Guggenheim Museum.

Jessica Rabbit in characteristic pose (left) and Lindsay Lohan with "almond milk Upper East Blowout" hairstyle in black leather corset with silk laces and stainless steel eyelets.

Technically, the hairstyle is a “blowout” because historically the look was achieved with a combination of product & blow dryer; that’s still how most are done.  Because the really dramatic blowouts demand significant volume (ideally of “thick” hair), it can’t be achieved by everyone in their natural state and for Ms Lohan’s cover shot celebrity hairstylist Dimitris Giannetos (b 1983, Instagram: @dimitrishair) engineered things using a wig by Noah Scott (b 1998, Instagram: @whatwigs) of What Wigs, the industry’s go-to source for extravagant hair-pieces.  The use of “almond milk” to describe a shade of blonde was a bit opportunistic and would seem very similar to hues known variously as “light cool”, “light golden”, “champagne”, “golden honey” & “light ombre” but product differentiation is there to be grabbed and it seems to have caught on so it’ll be interesting to see if it gains industry support and endures to become one of the “standard blondes”.  So the linguistic effect is intended to be accumulative, Mr Giannetos calling his “Upper East blowout” “an homage” to the New York of the popular imagination and some of the hairstyles which appeared in the publicity shots of golden age Hollywood stars, memorably captured by the depiction of Jessica Rabbit in Robert Zemeckis’s (b 1952) live/animated toon hybrid movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).  Think luxuriant waves meet old money.

However, a Vogue cover shot in a well-lit studio and created using a custom-made wig, styled by an expert hairdresser is one thing but to replicate the look IRL (in real life) is another because, despite what shampoo advertisements would have us believe, “high-gloss” rarely just happens and even with a wig, to achieve the required fullness and visual volume usually demands what needs to be understood as structural engineering.  Usually, this will necessitate “…extensions set in pin curls, then brushed out meticulously…” before being shaped with the appropriate product as a device.  Expectations need to be realistic because with each change in camera angle, it can be necessary to “re-blow and re-style”; while it’s not quite that each strand needs to be massages into place for each shot, that can be true of each wave and just because the hair looks soft and bouncy in the images on a magazine’s glossy pages, the use of fudge or moose to achieve the look can render locks IRL remarkable rigid.

Tatterdemalion

Tatterdemalion (pronounced tat-er-di-meyl-yuhn or tat-er-di-mal-yuhn)

(1) A person in tattered clothing; a shabby person.

(2) Ragged; unkempt or dilapidated.

(3) In fashion, (typically as “a tatterdemalion dress” etc), garments styled deliberately frayed or with constructed tears etc (also described as “distressed” or “destroyed”).

(4) A beggar (archaic).

1600–1610: The original spelling was tatter-de-mallian (the “demalion” rhymed with “Italian” in English pronunciation), the construct thus tatter + -demalion, of uncertain origin although the nineteenth century English lexicographer Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1810-1897) (remembered still for his marvelous Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1894) suggested it might be from de maillot (shirt) which does seem compelling.  Rather than the source, tatter is thought to have been a back-formation from tattered, from the Middle English tatered & tatird, from the Old Norse tǫturr.  Originally, it was derived from the noun, but it was later re-analysed as a past participle (the construct being tatter +‎ -ed) and from this came the verb.  As a noun a tatter was "a shred of torn cloth or an individual item of torn and ragged clothing" while the verb implied both (as a transitive) "to destroy an article of clothing by shredding" & (as an intransitive) "to fall into tatters".  Tatterdemalion is a noun & adjective and tatterdemalionism is a noun; the noun plural is tatterdemalions.

In parallel, there was also the parallel "tat", borrowed under the Raj from the Hindi टाट (ṭāṭ) (thick canvas) and in English it assumed a variety of meanings including as a clipping of tattoo, as an onomatopoeia referencing the sound made by dice when rolled on a table (and came to be used especially of a loaded die) and as an expression of disapprobation meaning “cheap and vulgar”, either in the context of low-quality goods or sleazy conduct.  The link with "tatty" in the sense of “shabby or ragged clothing” however apparently comes from tat as a clipping of the tatty, a woven mat or screen of gunny cloth made from the fibre of the Corchorus olitorius (jute plant) and noted for it loose, scruffy-looking weave.  Tatterdemalion is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is tatterdemalions.  The historic synonyms were shoddy, battered, broken, dilapidated, frayed, frazzled, moth-eaten, ragged, raggedy, ripped, ramshackle, rugged, scraggy, seedy, shabby, shaggy, threadbare, torn & unkempt and in the context of the modern fashion industry, distressed & destroyed.  An individual could also be described as a tramp, a ragamuffin, a vagabond, a vagrant, a gypsy or even a slum, some of those term reflecting class and ethnic prejudice or stereotypes.  Historically, tatterdemalion was also a name for a beggar.

A similar word in Yiddish was שמאַטע‎ (shmate or shmatte and spelled variously as schmatte, schmata, schmatta, schmate, schmutter & shmatta), from the Polish szmata, of uncertain origin but possibly from szmat (a fair amount).  In the Yiddish (and as adopted in Yinglish) it meant (1) a rag, (2) a piece of old clothing & (3) in the slang of the clothing trade, any item of clothing.  That was much more specific than the Polish szmata which meant literally "rag or old, ripped piece of cloth" but was used also figuratively to mean "publication of low journalistic standard" (ie analogous the English slang use of "rag") and in slang to refer to a woman of loose virtue (used as skank, slut etc might be used in English), a sense which transferred to colloquial use in sport to mean "simple shot", "easy goal" etc.

Designer distress: Lindsay Lohan illustrates the look.

Tatterdemalion is certainly a spectrum condition (the comparative “more tatterdemalion”; the superlative “most tatterdemalion”) and this is well illustrated by the adoption of the concept by fashionistas, modern capitalism soon there to supply demand.  In the fashion business, tatterdemalion needs to walk a fine line because tattiness was historically associated with poverty while designers need to provide garments which convey a message wealth.  The general terms for such garments is “distressed” although “destroyed” is (rather misleadingly) also used.

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) in “cut-off” denim shorts with leather braces while beltless.

The ancestor of designer tatterdemalion was a pair of “cut off” denim shorts, improvised not as a fashion statement but as a form of economy, gaining a little more life from a pair of jeans which had deteriorated beyond the point where mending was viable.  Until the counter-culture movements of the 1960s (which really began the previous decade but didn’t until the 1960s assume an expression in mass-market fashion trends), wearing cut-off jeans or clothing obviously patched and repaired generally was a marker of poverty although common in rural areas and among the industrial working class where it was just part of life.  It was only in the 1960s when an anti-consumerist, anti materialist vibe attracted the large cohort of youth created by the post-war “baby boom” that obviously frayed or torn clothing came to be an expression of disregard or even disdain for the prevailing standards of neatness (although paradoxically they were the richest “young generation” ever).  It was the punk movement in the 1970s which took this to whatever extremes seemed possible, the distinctive look of garments with rips and tears secured with safety pins so emblematic of (often confected) rebellion that in certain circles it remains to this day part of the “uniform”.  The fashion industry of course noted the trend and what would later be called “distressed” denim appeared in the lines of many mainstream manufacturers as early as the 1980s, often paired with the acid-washing and stone-washing which previously had been used to make a pair of jeans appear “older”, sometimes a desired look.

Dolce & Gabbana Distressed Jeans (part number FTCGGDG8ET8S9001), US$1150.

That it started with denim makes sense because it's the ultimate "classless" fabric in that it's worn by both rich and poor and while that has advantages for manufacturers, it does mean some are compelled to find ways to ensure buyers are able (blatantly or with some subtlety) to advertise what they are wearing is expensive; while no fashion house seems yet to have put the RRP (recommended retail price) on a leather patch, it may be only a matter of time.  The marketing of jeans which even when new gave the appearance of having been “broken in” by the wearer was by the 1970s a define niche, the quasi-vintage look of “fade & age” achieved with processes such as stone washing, enzyme washing, acid washing, sandblasting, emerizing and micro-sanding but this was just to create an effect, the fabrics not ripped or torn.  Distressed jeans represented the next step in the normal process of wear, fraying hems and seams, irregular fading and rips & tears now part of the aesthetic.  As an industrial process that’s not difficult to do but if done in the wrong way it won’t resemble exactly a pair of jeans subject to gradual degradation because different legs would have worn the denim at different places.  In the 2010s, the look spread to T-shirts and (predictably) hoodies, some manufacturers going beyond mere verisimilitude to (sort of) genuine authenticity, achieving the desired decorative by shooting shirts with bullets, managing a look which presumably the usual tricks of “nibbling & slashing” couldn’t quite emulate.  Warming to the idea, the Japanese label Zoo released jeans made from material torn by lions and tigers, the company anxious to mention the big cats in Tokyo Zoo seemed to "enjoy the fun" and to anyone who has seen a kitten with a skein of wool, that will sound plausible.  Others emulated the working-class look, the “caked-on muddy coating” and “oil and grease smears” another variant although one apparently short-lived; appearing dirty apparently never a fashionable choice.  All these looks had of course been seen for centuries, worn mostly by the poor with little choice but to eke a little more wear from their shabby clothes but in the late twentieth century, as wealth overtook Western society, the look was adopted by many with disposable income; firstly the bohemians, hippies and other anti-materialists before the punk movement which needed motifs with some capacity to shock, something harder to achieve than had once been the case.

Distressed top and bottom.  Gigi Hadid (b 1995) in distressed T-shirt and "boyfriend" jeans.

For poets and punks, improvising the look from the stocks of thrift shops, that was fine but for designer labels selling scruffy-looking jeans for four-figure sums, it was more of a challenge, especially as the social media generation had discovered that above all they liked authenticity and faux authenticity would not do, nobody wanting to look it to look they were trying too hard.  The might have seemed a problem, given the look was inherently fake but the aesthetic didn’t matter for its own sake, all that had to be denoted was “conspicuous consumption” (the excessive spending on wasteful goods as proof of wealth) and the juxtaposition of thousand dollar distressed jeans with the odd expensive accessory, achieved that and more, the discontinuities offering irony as a look.  The labels, the prominence of which remained a focus was enough for the message to work although one does wonder if any of the majors have been tempted to print a QR code on the back pocket, linked to the RRP because, what people are really trying to say is “My jeans cost US$1200”.

1962 AC Shelby American Cobra (CSX 2000), interior detail, 2016.

The value of selective scruffiness is well known in other fields.  When selling a car, usually a tatty interior greatly will depress the price (sometimes by more even than the cost of rectification).  However, if the tattiness is of some historic significance, it can add to car’s value, the best example being if the deterioration is part of a vehicle's provenance and proof of originality, a prized attribute to the segment of the collector market known as the “originally police”.  In 2016, what is recognized as the very first Shelby American AC Cobra (CSX 2000) sold for US$13.75 million, becoming the highest price realized at auction for what is classified as "American car".  Built in 1962, it was an AC Ace shipped to California without an engine (and apparently not AC's original "proof-of-concept" test bed which was fitted with one of the short-lived 221 cubic inch (3.6 litre) versions of Ford's new "thin-wall" Windsor V8) where the Shelby operation installed a 260 cubic inch (4.2 litre) Windsor and the rest is history.  The tatterdemalion state of the interior was advertised as one of the features of the car, confirming its status as “an untouched survivor”.  Among Cobra collectors, patina caused by Carroll Shelby's (1923–2012) butt is a most valuable tatterdemalion.

Patina plus and beyond buffing out: Juan Manuel Fangio, Mercedes-Benz W196R Stromlinienwagen (Streamliner), British Grand Prix, Silverstone, 17 July 1954.

Also recommended to be repaired before sale are dents, anything battered unlikely to attract a premium.  However, if a dent was put there by a Formula One (F1) world champion, it becomes a historic artefact.  In 1954, Mercedes-Benz astounded all when their new grand prix car (the W196R) appeared with all-enveloping bodywork, allowed because of a since closed loophole in the rule-book.  The sensuous shape made the rest of the field look antiquated although underneath it was a curious mix of old and new, the fuel-injection and desmodromic valve train representing cutting edge technology while the swing axles and drum brakes spoke to the past and present, the engineers’ beloved straight-eight configuration (its last appearance in F1) definitely the end of an era.  On fast tracks like Monza, the aerodynamic bodywork delivered great speed and stability but the limitations were exposed when the team ran the Stromlinienwagen at tighter circuits and in the 1954 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Juan Manuel Fangio (1911–1995; winner of five F1 world-championship driver's titles) managed to clout a couple of oil-drums (those and bails of hay how track safety was then done) because it was so much harder to determine the extremities without being able to see the front wheels.  Quickly, the factory concocted a functional (though visually unremarkable) open-wheel version and the sleek original was thereafter used only on the circuits where the highest speeds were achieved.  In 1954, the factory was unconcerned with the historic potential of the dents and repaired the tatterdemalion W196R so an artefact of the era was lost.  That apart, as used cars the W196Rs have held their value well, an open-wheel version selling at auction in 2013 for US$29.7 million while in 2025 a Stromlinienwagen realized US$53.9 million.  

1966 Ferrari 330 GTC (1966-1968) restored by Bell Sport & Classic.  Many restored Ferraris of the pre-1974 era are finished to a much higher standard than when they left the showroom.  Despite this, genuine, original "survivors" (warts and all) are much-sought in some circles.

In the collector car industry, tatterdemalion definitely is a spectrum condition and for decades the matter of patina versus perfection has been debated.  There was once the idea that in Europe the preference was for a vehicle to appear naturally aged (well-maintained but showing the wear of decades of use) while the US market leaned towards cars restored to the point of being as good (or better) than they were on the showroom floor.  Social anthropologists might have some fun exploring that perception of difference and it was certainly never a universal rule but the debate continues, as does the argument about “improving” on the original.  Some of the most fancied machinery of the 1950s and 1960s (notably Jaguars, Ferraris and Maseratis) is now a staple of the restoration business but, although when new the machines looked gorgeous, it wasn’t necessary to dig too deep to find often shoddy standards of finish, the practice at the time something like sweeping the dirt “under the rug”.  When "restored", many of these cars are re-built to a higher standard, what was often left rough because it sat unseen somewhere now smoothed to perfection.  That’s what some customers want and the best restoration shops can do either though there are questions about whether what might be described as “fake patina” is quite the done thing.  Mechanics and engineers who were part of building Ferraris in the 1960s, upon looking at some immaculately “restored” cars have been known wryly to remark: “that wasn't how we built them then.”

1939 Ford Deluxe coupe restored in “distressed-look green”.

The industry describes restorations which emulate the “worn survivor” appearance variously as “distressed look” or “patina look”.  There’s clearly a market for both machines restored to (or beyond) the state they’d have been in on the showroom floor and those finished in a way which resembles how they’d likely look if merely for decades well-used yet maintained.  The convention in the later is for mechanical components to be restored to original condition while interiors tend to be allowed to show some age if of leather but refurbished or renewed to an immaculate state if of a fabric.  Interior timbers are almost always restored.  Usually the exterior finish is rendered conventionally with paint but some use wraps which can make something like minor surface rust appear more realistic.  The sub-genres of restomods (older cars which maintain a substantially original appearance but fitted with modern mechanical components) and rat-rods (which create intentionally dilapidated appearance but with modern components beneath) both in their own way take a mix-n-match approach to things but while the classic restromod is a “Q-ship” in that while externally indistinguishable from an original, the performance is much higher, the rat-rod ethos is from the Dolly Parton (b 1946) school of “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap”.

Gucci offered Distressed Tights at US$190 (for a pair so quite good value).  Rapidly, they sold-out.

The fake patina business goes back quite a way.  Among antique dealers, it’s now a definite niche but from the point at which the industrial revolution began to create a new moneyed class of mine and factory owners, there was a sub-set of the new money (and there are cynics who suggest it was mostly at the prodding of their wives) who wished to seem more like old money and a trend began to seek out “aged” furniture with which a man might deck out his (newly acquired) house to look as if things had been in the family for generations.  The notoriously snobbish (and amusing) diarist Alan Clark (1928–1999) once referred to someone as looking like “they had to buy their own chairs”, prompting one aristocrat to respond: “That’s a bit much from someone whose father (the art historian and life peer Kenneth Clark (1903–1983)) had to buy his own castle.”  The old money were of course snooty about the such folk and David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) would lament many of the “jumped-up grocers” in his Liberal Party were more troublesome and less sympathetic to the troubles of the downtrodden than the "backwoodsmen" gentry in their inherited country houses.