SKIN DEEP MAGAZINE • 51we could do it there. So we wrote backwards
and forwards for a while and I went there in
1974 and my suit was the first major one that
he’d done. I spent over 100 hours there across
several days getting it done in one go.”
At which point, it’s worth pointing out
that Darryl and myself find it more than a
little funny to imagine a scenario in which
Dennis sits down to write a letter, throws it
in the mail and gets up every day from then
on, for days/weeks, waiting for a reply... be-
fore he has to write another in return and
the waiting starts again.
Maybe soulless tech isn’t such a bad thing
after all.
Then again, nobody ever said: ‘That’s amaz-
ing—do you still have those original letters
from Ed Hardy’ about an email. Fact.
“We became good friends from all that cor-
respondence though. He never tattooed here
but at the shop in Finchley Road he used to
come over three or four times a year and
work by appointment only.”
Which is how legends are created if you
haven’t been paying attention.
I have more than enough interview material
to fill an entire magazine from the hour or so
spent with Dennis and—for a change—I’ve tak-
en a lot away personally from that hour too. For
the most part, it’s become more obvious than
ever that you can’t ‘set out’ to be a success. You
just have to saddle up your horse and do what
you want to do even it means riding that horse
until its legs are tiny stumps. You can also nev-
er underestimate the geography of where you
are. All three of us here adore the seedy mess
that Soho used to be but maybe if it had stayed
the same it would have died of natural causes...
or worse still, outstayed its welcome.
As it is, I’m not even sure it deserves to be
called Soho anymore—aside from maybe this
tiny doorway in a narrow street called Walkers
Court in which you can genuinely find a his-
tory you won’t come across anywhere else. Dennis getting his body suit worked on by Ed Hardy back in 74To celebrate his fifty years
in tattooing, Dennis will be
making a home for himself
at Diamond Jacks for fifty
days from 1st September
to 20th October. You can
make an appointment on
020 7437 0605 or 0777
2600090 or by emailing
[email protected]
And just so as you don’t
get lost, you can find
Diamond Jacks at 5 Walkers
Court, London, W1.