Traditional style tattoo on a calf of a pair of legs in fishnet stockings and red heels, with banners reading Don't dream it, be it.

Fishnet legs and banners on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A pair of legs in fishnet stockings and red shoes is framed by two blue-edged banners and a red ribbon, with the words DON'T DREAM IT and BE IT lettered in black. The bold black outlines and flat red, blue and skin-toned fills are typical of traditional tattooing, and the design wraps diagonally up the calf. The colour is vivid against the lighter skin, with the red and blue standing out most clearly.

Traditional Lettering Calf Leg Heel Banner Ribbon Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody on Marrowby pier owned a proper dressing room, so Ivy Penhale hung the costumes from the rail of the old lifeboat shed and called it the wardrobe. The boy turned up on the second Monday of September with a borrowed sewing kit and a claim that he could hem anything. Ivy handed him a pair of fishnets with a ladder running up one leg and pointed at the stool. "Pick up every stitch," she said, "or you're out on the boards with the gulls."

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The company's big number was a revue called Lamplight Girls, and every night the leading lady split a stocking on the same kick. Dennis learned to mend them with a crochet hook, catching each loop before it ran. Between shows he sat under the banners Ivy had painted for the booth years back, two strips of blue-edged card reading DON'T DREAM IT and BE IT, the letters gone soft with salt. Her husband had lettered them, and she would not let anyone touch the spelling. "Keep the words right," she told him, "that's the whole trick."

When Marigold went down with a fever on the Saturday, Ivy pushed a pair of red heels across the floor. "Your feet are the right size, God help us." Dennis went on under the strings of bulbs with the stockings he had mended, and halfway through the chorus the generator coughed and every light on the pier died. The crowd gasped, then someone at the rail started clapping in time, and he kept dancing into the dark, the sea loud below, the fishnet catching the glow from the lighthouse.

Afterwards Ivy sat on the edge of the stage with a pot of red paint and a brush worn to a spike. She went over the faded ribbon, then picked out the I on the lower banner that had flaked away years ago and painted it fresh and square. "There," she said, and tossed him a rag for his hands.