Dreads & Tattoos

by Trev Bee
(Melbourne Australia)

Years ago I used to be keen to change my look when i was about 16 years old but never really had the nerve to make a change too full on for fear it would cause more hassle than it was worth to express my self.

I always dressed very ordinary & casual. Blue jeans, t shirts & hair was short. I never had any earrings or wore jewelery. I listened to pop music and never thought much of changing my ways.
But by my late teens I had discovered more alternative music & really liked the scene as it seemed that it was aimed at my age group.

By this stage my hair was getting much longer & that was the first step to making a bigger transformation from my look back in school.
So by this stage in my very early 20s & wanted to change my image to a more grungy alternative style. Deliberately scruffy. Looking broke & shabby was really appealing back then & was the done look for the music scene I liked. I still kept my look fairly light weight as I lived at home & didn't want to upset the parents too much even though they seems to think I was letting the family name down or something.

A few years later & was still into the same music & going to gigs but had planned a holiday to Australia. Once I got to Australia a bigger transformation took place & I dyed my hair all kinds of colours, grew long beards & got my hair dread locked. The next stage was to get a few tattoos & be a bit more committed to the look.

But once I returned home after my Australian trip, my parents were a little in shock but by this time I was less worried about their small minded outlook on the world & more about how i wanted to express my self.

Funnily enough, a few weeks after I shaved my hair off because i hated the stink of dreads but was always quite happy I had the tattoos even though so many people today have them it seems very unoriginal.