By Staff
What inspired you to get into the piercing industry?
Nothing inspired me. I more so, fell into it. When I first moved to Atlanta, the first group of friends I made were at a tattoo shop. Not having any other friends or family out here, I spent a lot of time there. Eventually they said I had to do something. I didn’t feel confident enough to tattoo, so I tried my hand at piercing, and the rest is history. I’ve been doing it ever since.
What kind of skills are needed to be successful in this industry?
You need attention to detail, great customer service skills, a willingness to learn and patience. This craft doesn’t happen over night.
What are other career aspects of the industry?
The service side of the business is pretty narrow, outside of styling and education. There aren’t many roads you can travel with it. The goods aspects on the other hand is very broad. There’s so much that you can do within jewelry design and production. There are niches within numerous fields. In furniture making or woodworking, there’s jewelry display design and creation. In videography and photography there’s body jewelry specific capturing that requires a differing level of precision to highlight the brilliance and details of the jewelry. In the medical sciences such as dermatology and biochemistry, there is an expanding area of understanding around how piercings heal and jewelry interacts with the body as well as the best sterilization procedures for safety. There is even a niche for the manufacturing of tools that are specific to our industry. Honestly there is so much, I can’t capture it all.
Why has piercing become such a phenomenon?
When you say piercing, I assume you are referring to the alternative placements or lesser common placements such as lip, navel or nipple piercings. Earlobe and nostril piercings have been mainstream for centuries throughout a number of cultures, time periods and spanning the globe. Other placements have existed along side them forever, but have not always been so mainstream depending on the society and the time period. In modern Western society, it started to expand in the 90s. I would probably thank Britney Spears for having her navel pierced and on display, because since then every sixteen year old girl has wanted a navel piercing. In the 90s, there were several other pop culture icons that adorned alternative placements such as the tongue, eyebrow, lip, etc., that captured public attention and helped to make the other placements more pervasive in common times. I would like to also note that, traditional earlobe piercings are still piercings. You would be hard pressed to find a woman without them.
Fun fact: The oldest mummy ever discovered had multiple ear piercings.
Where would you like to see your career in the next five years?
Education, styling and robust jewelry selection are the focal points in my business. Ideally, I would like to have a number of fine jewelry shops, where we are known for our curations and wide variety of fine jewelry. I hope in five years to be the industry leader and have a strong reputation as the “Go To Guy.” In five years, I hope that my brand and I are the first thought when it comes to fine jewelry, curations and body piercings in general.
Christian Verrette
