If you don’t know Dr. Woo by name, then you almost certainly know him by design. The most in-demand tattoo artist in the world is famous for his one needle, fine line tatts that adorn the skin of everyone from Emilia Clarke to Drake, and he’s racked up over 1.2 million followers on Instagram.
Right now, the artist has a wait-list of over two years, but since he’s headed to Australia for blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pop-up, we had a chat to the man himself.
Scoring an appointment with Dr. Woo is notoriously difficult; there’s entire Reddit threads devoted to it, and people have waited up to tea years just to be Woo’d. He’ll announce via social media that he’s taking bookings, ask hopefuls to email him their name and number, and call those numbers in the order he receives them. He books in two month blocks. Don’t get a call? Try again in a couple months.
“I say it’s like a lottery system because that’s how it translates, because that’s how people really get appointments,” he tells PEDESTRIAN.TV by phone, in an interview that’s taken a heap of to-ing and fro-ing just to find a spare 10 minutes in his busy schedule.
“So the lottery side – if 500 people are emailing at the exact same time and only two get through, I guess that’s a considered a lottery.”
His new digs, at Hollywood‘s famous Roosevelt Hotel, only add to the mystery. You don’t get the address until you get an appointment. You don’t get an appointment until you get lucky.
“For me, it’s a private place – that’s why it’s called the Hideaway – and it’s very ‘by appointment’ only,” he says. “I kind of wanted it to be not so available for everyone just to come by. It was a fun way for people to… if they really want to come through and have the experience, you know, you have to work for it a little bit. Do your research.”
You wonder if that goes for his ever-growing celebrity clientele, which includes Cara Delevingne, Zoë Kravitz, Sky Ferreira, David and Brookyln Beckham. He recently inked a tribute to Carrie Fisher on her daughter Billie Lourd‘s ankle, paying tribute to both her mum’s tatt and Star Wars legacy.
“It was nice,” he said of that session. “Billie’s an awesome girl. It was an honour to do that for her.”
He’s also the one who inked our national treasure – the holy Vegemite – on Miley Cyrus. When I asked how that came about, he laughs and says he doesn’t know. “That’s just what she wanted!”
But that being said, Aussies shouldn’t despair of getting Dr. Woo’d unless they have enough reserve cash for a plane ticket to LA.
“For Aussies I would say: if you’re coming into town, call ahead and talk to the shop manager, and say, ‘We’re here for a short time, if there’s any cancellations we would love to get it’. Usually I try and accommodate people who are coming from far away.”
As his fame grows, of course, so do his number of imitators. I ask him how it feels to see his work replicated by so many artists around the world.
“I’ll be honest, it’s a little bittersweet, ’cause something that’s so personal to you and that you’ve nurtured and created, it’s a special, personal connection,” he says. “So it is a little weird to see other people kind of take that and make it their own. But on the flip side, it’s a great honour. There’s so many artists out there. And I guess at the end of the day, as a creator, you kind of want to leave an imprint. And those things allow other people to be inspired. Like I said, it’s bittersweet, but I appreciate it, you know.”
Dr. Woo is heading to Sydney for a one-off pop-up, inking his iconic tatts on a few lucky Aussies on November 18.
