Tattoos Up When Economy Down

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

December 19, 2010

By Paris Achen

Medford, Oregon  
Mail Tribune

While other downtown Medford shop windows went dark during the recession, Phat Kat Tattoo and Piercing on South Riverside Avenue was expanding and renovating.

Although owner Jeff Rahenkamp attributes much of Phat Kat's success to its clean and friendly environment, the shop is not an anomaly. In fact, the tattoo parlor is a microcosm of an industry that has continued to grow and thrive in spite of the economic downturn.

“When people are losing their homes, their cars and everything, you can't take tattoos away,” Rahenkamp says. “They're mine. Unless you're taking my skin off, you aren't taking it.”

Nearly one in four Americans had a tattoo in 2006, according to a study published in September of that year by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

“It's no longer just bikers, drifters and people who don't want to conform to society who have tattoos,” Rahenkamp says. “Now, we're tattooing doctors and lawyers.”

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Is it true that people still continue to tend to their appearance and persona even though their pockets jingle with only a little change and their bellies are hungry? Some point out that surrounding the times of the GREAT DEPRESSION the market was double bullish with respect to personal cosmetics and perfumes. 

Evidence from Avon, the famous perfume and cosmetics company:

“California Perfume issued its first product catalog in 1896, which contained descriptions of items but no photographs. In 1897, McConnell [David McConnell, a 28-year-old, who launched Avon] had a three-story, 3,000-square-foot laboratory constructed in Suffern, New York, to develop new cosmetic products for the company. In 1906, its first print ads appeared in Good Housekeeping and its first color catalog was issued. Disaster struck that year when CPC's San Francisco office was destroyed in the great earthquake that decimated the city. A new office soon opened, as did new branch offices in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, and Davenport, Iowa. By the end of the year, the company had ten thousand sales representatives and managers, and offered 117 different products. 

In 1914, CPC opened a sales office in Montreal, Canada, followed the next year by a manufacturing plant. By 1920, annual sales revenue had topped $1 million. Fueled by the economic boom of the 1920s, annual sales reached $2 million in 1928, powered by twenty-five thousand sales agents in the United States and Canada. The company moved into a new headquarters, a just-built skyscraper in Manhattan. It also introduced its first products under the Avon brand name: a toothbrush, talcum powder, and a vanity set. 

McConnell died in 1937 and his son, David Jr., became president of CPC. The company moved its headquarters to a larger building in Rockefeller Center in New York. The company also instituted a money-back guarantee on its products. Despite the economic hardships following the Great Depression (1929-34) when millions of Americans lost their jobs, CPC managed to flourish, doubling its sales revenue to $4 million by 1938.”

Read more: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/businesses/A-F/Avon-Products-Inc.html#ixzz18hqTuBXY

G. Mark Sumpter