Colour tattoo of a green top hat with a red ribbon, feather and tag, beside the black lettering "We're all mad here", on the chest.

Top hat and "We're all mad here" on the chest

Lettering · Chest · Mixed · Photo

A green top hat with a red ribbon tied around its base and a feather tucked into the band sits on the left, with a small tag on the side. To the right, the words "We're all mad here" are set in black typewriter-style lettering. The hat uses soft shading and blended colour, the ribbon is a bright red with folds, and the lettering is solid black on pale skin.

Lettering Traditional Chest Top hat Ribbon Feather Quote Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The red silk had to be cut twice before Mrs Pym would let it go. She held the scissors up to the gaslight afterwards, as though checking they had not gone soft.

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Nell had spent the winter sewing ribbons to the bases of hats nobody in Clerkenwell could afford, and she had learned that a good milliner never asked a customer why. Mr Ashdown had come in on a wet Tuesday wanting a hat that would not mind him. Mrs Pym sold him a green silk top hat at ten shillings and sixpence, tucked a heron's feather into the band, and tied the price card to the lining with waxed thread.

He came back on the Thursday with the hat held in both hands like a bird he had found on the pavement. He said the lining had been stitched by someone who had been sad. Nell said she had stitched it. Mrs Pym said nothing. She turned the hat over, read the card aloud in her flat voice, then pulled the thread loose and handed him the card and a pencil.

He wrote something small on the inside of the crown and gave the pencil back. Nell read it later, when the shop was dark: we're all mad here, in a hand that leaned over like it was tired. Mr Ashdown laughed at the counter, a short surprised sound, and put the hat on right there among the blocks. It sat a little crooked. Mrs Pym let it stay that way and reached for the next length of felt.