Black and grey bow tattoo with shaded loops and tails on the back of a neck, drawn in fine line style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bow tattoo on the back of the neck

Fine line · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A small bow sits centrally on the back of the neck, with a knotted centre and two looped sides above two long tails. The linework is fine and the loops are lightly shaded with dotted and hatched grey, giving the bow some dimension. The ink is black and grey on skin, photographed from behind against a warm, dim background with the hair pulled up.

Fine line Neck Bow Ribbon

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The name badge says Dawn in capitals, and you have to tilt your head to read the small print underneath, because the function room at the Crown has one bulb out and the disco lights are doing their best to make everyone look nineteen. Marion from Form 4B is already at the bar with two glasses of rosé she has not asked you about. "You still owe me a ribbon," she says, and nudges the second glass across the wood.

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It was the summer you were fifteen, the week before the mock results, when Mr Lowther confiscated the navy satin bow from your hair for breaking the uniform policy. He dropped it into the drawer of his desk with the chewing gum and the spare protractors. Marion swore she would get it back, and the two of you spent the rest of term passing notes about it, drawing its loops in biro down the margins of your maths book, the tails curling off the page like smoke.

Marion reaches into her clutch and sets a tin on the bar, the old Quality Street one with the purple lid. Inside, under a tangle of hair grips and a bus pass from 1998, the satin bow lies flat, its knot gone soft and grey at the edges. "Lowther gave it to me at the leavers' do," she says. "Said he'd never seen anyone so determined to lose a thing on purpose."

You lift it out and the tails unfurl across your palm, lighter than you remember, and you realise you have been carrying the same small stubbornness for thirty years. You pin it to the lapel of your jacket, where it sits like a question nobody needs to answer, and you order another round.