Back view of a model in a backless navy beaded gown, with a small black lettering tattoo on her upper arm.

Small lettering tattoo on upper arm, runway model

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A model with long, loose hair walks away from the camera on a dark runway, wearing a navy gown with beaded, lace-like embroidery and an open back held by thin straps. A small black tattoo of a few characters sits on her upper arm, too small and blurred to read clearly. The background is almost black, so the focus falls on the lit skin, the dress and the tattoo.

Lettering Upper arm Letter Long hair

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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

Forty minutes before the lights went up, Marisol found the bead that had been pulling the whole hem out of true. It was a jet bugle, no longer than a grain of rice, lying on the cutting-room floor beside a sweet wrapper and somebody's pencil stub. She knelt on the cold concrete and held it to the lamp. The navy gown hung from a hook above her, its lace panels stiff with thousands of tiny stitches, and the open back caught the draught from the loading door so that the straps swayed like the cords of a bell.

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Nobody else was awake in the building. The show was in the morning and the dresser had gone home at nine with her fingers wrapped in tape. Marisol threaded a needle with silk the colour of wet slate, found the gap where the bead had been, and worked it back in one stitch at a time, counting under her breath the way her grandmother had counted rows of tatting on the Sunday train from Margate.

Beyond the swing doors, the runway stretched into black. Someone had left the stage lights on low, and the boards gleamed like a frozen pond. She pictured the walk: the slow turn at the far end, the back of the dress turned to the rows of seats, the small dark mark on a bare arm catching the spot for a second before the dark took it. Nobody in the front row would read it, and nobody needed to.

Marisol tied off the thread, bit it short, and smoothed the hem flat with the side of her thumb. The gown was ready, and for once the room was quiet enough to hear the clock on the wall ticking towards six.