Jamie Walker is the founder of The Devil’s Playground featured in the January issue of Models Ink Magazine. He is a biker, car builder and tattoo aficionado.
INTERVIEW:
MI- How did The Devil’s Playground come about?
JW – The Devils Playground was established back in July of 2017 by my partner Elena Mignani and myself. When we first met I was working in my own garage restoring and building vehicles and Elena had just travelled from her hometown in Italy to further her tattoo career. Inspired by each others creativity we decided to put our minds together to create The Devil’s Playground which then evolved into TDP Clothing in 2018. The idea behind TDP is take tattoo art and splice it with clothing and merchandise. We wanted to create a tattoo clothing line that was different from other brands in the industry. We really care about being a genuine company, we do everything ourselves, giving us a close relationship with our followers and customers, one of our main priorities. Absolutely everything we do from screen printing, social media, our website is done in-house. All of our designs are created, sketched out and made into our printed products and merchandise. We want to bring the same amount of passion, creativity and attention to detail to our clothing as we give to our custom vehicles and tattoos.
MI- How did you get together with your tattoo artist, partner?
JW – Me and Elena met for the first time in a tattoo shop in Sheffield where she was working. Where I pestered her to tattoo my throat for at least six months and eventually won the battle.
MI- If you could get tattooed by any artist in the world, who would you choose?
JW – If I could get tattooed by anybody I would have my leg tattooed by Grindesign (Robert Borbas) as I love the darkest black styles of tattooing.
MI-How old were you when you got your first tattoo? Do you regret any that you have?
JW – I was 17 when I got my first tattoo on my right arm which was a mixture of tribal and Japanese waves. Funnily enough it was the tattoo i regretted the most. Tribal should be illegal. Luckily now is covered with a huge black crow.
MI- Tell us about your tattoos, style, inspiration, how do you choose them?
JW – Most of my tattoos are random, again very different styles. I actually hand picked the majority oh my left leg myself. My left arm is the only themed piece, a full dot work sleeve by Emma Sam. The rest of my tattoos have been done over the past 13 years. I have a lot of neotraditional tattoos such as my favourite piece the death moth on my throat. Two years ago I had my fingers blasted over with some brutal black work.
MI – What distinguishes your brand TDP from others?
JW- We try to keep as genuine as possible, we love to have a good connection with our followers and customers. As a brand we try to do everything ourselves keeping us 100% independent constantly pushing our skills and products.
TDP clothing is pretty new to the world of Tattoo Clothing and we are very excited by how well we have been received in the short time we have been around. It’s driving us to create more and develop our brand as a whole, making friends along the way.
MI – What do you do you like to do in your free time or just for fun?
JW – I love working with my hands, messing around with anything with an engine. I also skate, play the guitar and love music.
MI – You model a lot of your clothes, do you, or have you modelled for other brands? Would you pursue a modelling career?
JW – The reason we (Elena Mignani and I) have both modeled a lot of our clothing ourselves is due to travelling. It is very difficult to find models in Countries you’re not familiar with. Yes, I have modeled for few different clothing companies in the past. I would love to be a tattooed model but I have face like a slapped arse.
MI – What are the biggest setbacks or obstacles that the tattoo/fashion industry faces?
JW – If you are new to the Tattoo clothing game it’s nearly impossible to break the social media barrier, trying to get noticed as a brand is very difficult with how the social media platforms work. Trying to gain some notice and followers take ten times the effort when you have just started.
MI – What are your favorite things/advantages about the industry?
JW – One of my favorite things about the industry so far is the friends and connections made through our customers, models and photographers. We met some amazing people across Europe.
MI – How does the tattoo culture in the UK differ from the rest of Europe or from America or other continents? Do you notice a difference?
JW – What I’ve noticed about the tattoo culture in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is it seems to be very difficult to become a tattoo artist in Europe than in England. There is a lot more people picking up a machine and two weeks later they are junior artists, this doesn’t seem to be as easy in Europe. I wouldn’t know about the tattooing in America as I’ve not yet visited
MI – What is something about you, people would be surprised to know?
JW -For the past year and a half we have lived in a 1990,s van driving from the UK to Finland then traveling through Europe working along the way.
I’m the only person from the UK to have a tongue split reconstruction. (still regret getting it sewn back up).
MI – What are your future plans for your brand?
JW -We are currently working so hard to open a physical shop and tattoo studio in the south of England. We have sponsored artists that are going to work with us such as BloodGodUK (Jason Denton). Also we will be bringing out lots more products and march in the upcoming months.
MI – Do you have a favourite quote(s)? It can be tattoo or non-related?
JW -“Suicide does not end the chances of life getting worse, Suicide eliminates the possibility of it ever getting better.”
I’ve lost a lot of friends in the UK to suicide so this quote is the most meaningful to me.
48 pages, published 1/23/2020
