We met Craig LaSeur in the weight room of the Lakeshore Athletic Club at Fullerton and Southport. His workout wear came bare, breezy, and ready-to-sweat. Still, members of our Fashion Intelligence Unit, wary of undercover agents, pressed the case.
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The heavy-duty outfit balances its bulk on the Everlast belt. Above, the trophy T has been ripped open, Flashdance-style, to expose the outer reaches of LaSeur’s tattoo collection. Arnold Rubin, who compiled the tattoo tome Marks of Civilization, would classify the bodybuilder’s skin art aesthetic as International Folk Style–a jumble of “flash” (prefab) designs splattered across the extremities, drawn from a testosterone-powered palette of skulls, dragons, and sexy ladies. (Curator LaSeur interprets: “Chick with a Mohawk kissing a skull.”)
People have been etching tattoos (early action figure Captain Cook picked up the word–and the look–in Tahiti) into their skin since the Stone Age. Whether tribal custom, signature, prisoner ID, mark of devotion, freak show attraction, rite of passage, status symbol, or accessory, tattoos brand for life. Just as the tartans signal allegiance to a regiment, so do our bodybuilder’s bleeding heart and angry bulldog fix his identity as a lovelorn ex-Marine.
