Venticento Milano is a Tattoo Parlor in Città Studi, Milano (Italy). Get to know them.

Willis Mahari:

Luca, Ben and I, are all friends and creative partners. I mean we've tatted in all sorts of situations; working from home to outside to opening up a tattoo parlor. Truthfully, we never thought we'd be opening up a shop but to some degree, it's much more than a shop, it's a sort of creative gallery and that happened organically. We craft our ideas with our customers and create something new that both the artist and the customer can be proud of.

Luca Mckensi:

as he said, it happened very organically. We didn't have to necessarily bust our brains on a business plan or anything like that, we had been tatting friends at home or customers recommended by friends, and naturally, word of mouth spread. It was easier to open up here in Milan because we had studied here and been friends for a long time. I was an artist working in Barcelona while Willis was working out in London, and with Ben, in Switzerland, it all made sense to bring it home. The name Venticento (20100) came from the zip codes of Milan which start off venti(20) and then cento (100s).

Willis:

What makes us different isn't only the parlor or the creative nature of our studio but the multi-cultural aspects of our team and the customers that come in. It's very diverse, people from all over come to the shop. The facts are that opening a business like ours a "Bottega artistica" gives us an opportunity to show people not only what we create but what we see as well; that breeds an environment for diversity. It gives us a chance to express ourselves and give a brief introduction to our customers of the artistic world. Sneakers are something that people wear all the time and that serves a rather basic function but when you paint them or make some art out of them it serves an even bigger purpose; it's a way to express oneself outside the skin. It's very important to us from our point of view to educate people about interpreting art whether it's a tattoo or apparel.

Luca:

Adding apparel to our shop also happened organically. Ben had sneakers at home, and when people would come over for a tat were be amazed at what he was doing with the sneakers. It was something normal that he was doing with his sneakers, but that type of passion for art draws in a lot of people; It's a lifestyle. The people we meet play a huge influence in how we run our business as well; when there is enough love for something that we do, we continue to do it more so. We didn't really expect this level of success sincerely speaking, from tatting at home to taking the trains back and forth to tattoo one person here and there from one city to the other to now having a shop that's thriving.[sic]

We've tatted soccer players, basketball players, rappers, you name it. It's not easy to have a tattoo parlor in any part of the world but it's even more difficult in Italy. We knew that the difficulties would help us grow and strengthen us; that it would teach us the real lessons that we had to learn about running a business but also about pursuing our collective passion.

Willis:

Tatting up some of the athletes that we used to see on tv was at first a bit scary. I mean knowing that your design would be seen on tv on their body in the future was nerve-wracking but experience takes care of that. The satisfaction of knowing that you're helping someone express themselves outweighs it all once you get started. Every time a customer hugs us or really just expresses gratitude, it pushes us all to work harder every day and to continue creating.

We treat our business and our customers like a family; Creating a really unique experience that's personable is what we really care about.