Idea Tattoo - 3NTINI Editore

There are trends that go beyond time and space such as armband is.
Both intended as jewel or tattoo it can be considered one of the most decorative elements that have ever been with men from prehistory till nowadays in The East, Africa, Europe or North and South America.

Only material and graphic patterns change while its spreading remains the same.
Simple and clean geometry, tribal and floral patterns are some of 300 kind we are proposing in our special issue Armband Tattoos. Each one designer, after a personal research, through ethnographic aspects gave us a wide range of beautiful plates of tribal subjects the most fantastic and curios ones ant other original drawings.

The armband is an everlasting jewel. It has never been nor will be a fashion unable to recognize its worth. Decorating its own arm with a band-tattoo is like to give ones beauty to eternity. Is the sureness that even if time is passing by you still have no regret, but the consciousness to wear an undispu-
ted symbol of beauty.

FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF FASHION
Armband origins are very old, they come through the Bronze Age (III-I millennium B.C.).
It is considered one of the first ornaments of human kind by some history students. Different kind of armband had been found in tribes, from Europe, Africa till the Far East.

Both men an women wore in Egypt flat or banded shape armband. That ornament spread over among Asian populations even in China, where the first signs, probably from India, appear later in I Century A.D., when the word was found in Chinese dictionary.

The armband was first of all used by women in Greece in Minoan Age like synonym of simplicity, on the contrary to the Asiatic sumptuosity. Often made of gold spirally they have a snake, lion or another animal head.

The Romans wore heavy bracelets full of precious stones and medals as well as
some Germanic, eastern and African populations did, both ancients and moderns. Sometimes the armband was considered as a distinctive sign, worn by members of different tribes, families and armies, to distinguish themselves during the battle as it has been told by Titus Livius (or Livy) when referring to The Sabine or the Celtic tribes.

During the Middle Ages the armband has know a decline, especially in western world. It become one of the women preferred ornament in the Renaissance.
With the French Revolution and its austerity armband use stopped but it will reappear very soon on sleeves and gloves.

In XIX Century the majority part of armband was made of gold and with different shapes. The armband has always met women unconditioned flavour, by remaining the most common ornament for many populations till nowadays. For those populations it represents a richness or rank symbol.

Hand made and fantasy Masterpieces are goat’s coat armband covered with copper wire used by some African tribes or the black marble worn by both Tuareg and western Sudan tribes. Some natives realize armband with vegetable fibres which they twist with surprising ability. Easter and Africa populations due to the armband round shape, give it a magical meaning by putting copper wires around dying people arms as it happened in Philippine, where it is thought to keep the dying soul on Earth.

And what about nowadays?
Beside this old fashion of armband-jewel and armband-tattoo there are new practices which derives from ancient tribal ones, such as: striping of flesh and branding. They are alternative and for sure strong way of imprinting symbol and meaning in the skin beyond time.