A CHAT WITH ALEXANDRA VITALIS, THE FOUNDER OF HOODPIERCED

When scrolling through @hoodpierced, the IG account behind Alexandra Vitalis’ piercing business, I was struck by two things. Firstly, the photos of her clients with their new piercings were like a form of portraiture, captured by a little Canon M10 and displayed on the hall of fame of her feed. Secondly, I noticed a real sense of community, with clients showing their gratitude in the comments and promising to return for more piercings. I had the pleasure of chatting to Alexandra last week, where I learnt that my perceptions had some grounding. A student at UAL studying Photojournalism, born and bred in Tottenham, Alexandra described to me how her business has grown from the comfort of her home with the support of a loyal, friend-based clientele.

I saw that you started piercing in January/February 2019. How did you get into piercing?

It was actually because of my friend, Bel. She asked me to pierce her ears because she was like, “Where do you get your ear piercings done?”, and I said I pierce my own ears. She’s like, “Okay, do my piercing for me then.” She came over a few days later and I did her piercing. But you know when girls in your secondary school try piercing, and they might bring an apple and a sewing needle to do it, and they take the sewing needle out and shove the piercing straight in? Yeah, I didn’t do that. I just followed the sewing needle through with the earring and it was done in like 2 seconds. My friend said, “Why don’t you start piercing?” I was working in retail at the time but my friend Eliah does tattoos so I knew where to order all the stuff.

So you were naturally gifted, then had friends with similar businesses which gave you the confidence to start your own?

Haha, I mean… I also had friends who trusted the process. They knew I wasn’t going to get it right the first time, but they were happy to be the guinea pigs for it. With any business whether it’s barbering, styling… sometimes you might be too quick to be like, “Oh, I’m baking these cakes,” and put it all over social media, then get bad reviews from people because they don’t know you, they don’t know where you come from, how you came up with this idea, or the money you put into it. All they know is you’ve just handed them shit cakes basically… so it’s good to have guinea pigs that know you.

Is there anything else that inspired you to pursue piercing? I saw that you have highlights on your IG dedicated to piercing culture from around the world.

With piercings, like anything, it has come from somewhere and it’s been colonised. I love the grunge-y aesthetic for it, I like it when I just have industrial metals in, not everything has to be sparkles, but sometimes it’s nice to see the jewellery side of it and not just puncture holes in somebody - but accessorise the body. It does inspire me because I get so many people who come that are black and brown saying “oh, I gotta hide my piercings from my family” and it’s like, it came from us. The grunge-y side of it is what makes it an aesthetic but it’s important to remember and acknowledge the roots of it as well.

What does piercing represent to you and the people you have done piercings for?

One person came to me, I don’t know their pronouns but femme-presenting - this was just six months after I had started, and they came for 3 piercings. They said that in Hinduism [this type of piercing] represents positive change - three piercings in the shape of a triangle, nose piercings and then their lobes were super low, which I thought was interesting. There’s so many things about piercings that you wouldn’t even think exist. There’s a release of stress as well when you’re getting these piercings, like going through physical pain to forget about the emotional pain - I think it’s a beautiful thing. And it’s so intimate, it’s someone trusting me with their body, and me trusting that they don’t move when I put a needle through their body. 

It must create a bond between you and the person.

It does! And even like some people that have come, we’ve ended up doing a reading, like they’ve read my cards for me. It’s such a beautiful thing having someone trust you with their body, especially when it’s something like nipple piercings or belly piercings where you can feel super anxious. When I started, I used to just play my normal playlist which would sometimes be like a bit of drill, or a bit of Phil Collins - a mixture of things. But then I started to realise, there are actually people with anxiety, there are people who feel nervous about the piercing, they don’t want to hear duh duh duh duh duh. So I have my balance playlist where it’s just complete chill vibes. They come in and I’m just so chatty so that they don’t even think about their nerves.

So you believe it’s important to create a comfortable environment?

Yes, and because I do it from home as well, because of Covid, it’s been so difficult trying to move to studios. And even the people that have enquired for me to work in their studios, I’ve just seen a lack of representation of brown and black skin - especially tattoo artists. My clients are a mixture of loads of people, as you can see from my page, and then for you to ask me to work in your space where predominantly all the work you do is on white skin is like; “what [are] you asking me to do here, like why are you bringing me onto the team?” With it being in my house, I feel like there’s that extra level of responsibility of making people feel comfortable in my space.

How was it starting a business in general? What were the challenges you faced?

When I made the hoodpierced account, that’s when it started to get difficult in a sense, because I had no idea how to run a business - before I was just doing it from my main account. Even things like having a set display thing… I’m still learning, I don’t know how to run a business but we’re doing it! I think the difficult side of having a business is knowing your business boundaries - because you can have personal boundaries, but then sometimes, being a Capricorn (a workaholic) I used to work on Sundays, I wouldn’t want to but I’d say “okay”. I would get annoyed at myself for not setting a boundary and complain about it, so Sundays are a no go now. I’ve realised it’s okay to say “no, these are the days I am available.” But it’s in my nature in general with my friends, my family, like I want to cater to you, I want you to be happy.

To take your business up a level, you had to get a piercing qualification. I saw that you set up a Go Fund Me page - would you mind telling me about that?

Originally, I was supposed to do [the qualification] as soon as I turned 18 but I got too happy with my first modelling pay checks. Then I was going to do it in May, but corona… so the earliest I could do it was August - that’s when I set up the Go Fund Me. I had lost my retail job due to Covid, so I couldn’t save up. The money in my savings went towards helping my mum with the house and stuff. My friends told me to do it, but there’s just so much pride. I don’t expect people to financially help me, or spend money on me or gift me with things, but I do that as a way to prove my love to people. I wanted to pay everyone back. Because it was Pride month, I donated to this charity based in Tottenham, setting up workshops for children in the area to teach them Spanish/English… one of the boys in charge of the charity, his grandad had passed away in Nigeria but left a mansion in the will for him, which he turned into a house for homeless children. A lot of their money goes towards it.

And is that something you want to continue within your business, giving back to the community?

Definitely. A friend of mine had come over for piercings the other day, and he was saying, “why don’t you start doing workshops?” I said I’m not at that place to teach people how to do piercings, but that has always definitely been a goal. It’s such an easy trade, unless you have a phobia of needles or blood or something, then don’t do it. Also, with the BLM protests happening again last year, and it being more noticeable for people, I didn't have the means to donate here, there and everywhere, I wasn’t able to financially support other people as well as myself like I wanted. But then when you see the skills that you do have, there’s always a way where there’s a will - like, what can I do, how can I contribute? And it’s like, just see what you’re good at and help. 

What’s the thinking behind your IG handle, @hoodpierced?

We in the hood baby! I was writing down so many names, using my own name, but I was just like there’s so many handles that are just “pierced by so-and-so” - I wanted something that I guess represented me in a way. You know, I’ve always lived in Tottenham throughout my whole life and it’s not something that is bad, it’s not a bad thing to be from the hood, but there’s a lot of stigmas around black people and hood. Just because you’re from the hood doesn’t mean you’re black, and just because you’re black doesn’t mean you’re from the hood. It was just something that I just thought yeah, this is me, it makes sense, period.

What are your future plans for your business?

Well hopefully, I’ll be moving into a studio sometime soon. I’ll be working for someone, but the plan is to save up to get my own studio and then I’ll be with my friend Eliah who does the tattooing. We’ve been saving for a while. But I would like a little, cute, femme, queer studio somewhere around the Hackney area. The studio that I will be moving to hopefully (depending on these guidelines that Mr Boris keeps changing), would be in Canary Wharf. 

But yeah, I just want my own little femme palace to be honest, that’s what I would love. And I still want to keep it very much like a home vibe, and not too clinical. The dream would be to have an actual store where there’s a garden, lounge area, a place to relax before a piercing. Also just a space to be used by people for their craft, like a work studio.

I don’t want to be full-time anything. I still don’t know where I’m going with photojournalism. I’d like to educate people about piercings, and promote more black and brown people within these sectors, because there’s a lot of studios that you go to now and there’s no queer, no POC. Also being able to collaborate with people on jewellery, maybe even making jewellery. There’s so many things you can do around piercings, even with what I’m doing now, the photo side of it, there’s tonnes more as well. But mainly just maintaining what I’m doing whilst also thinking about other business ideas, maybe one day get a TikTok, I don’t know. My friends are like: “you should do TikToks!” I’m like, I’m in the middle of getting needles, sterilising things! I don’t have time for it at the moment, but we’ll see.