The art of poking holes in bodies
Anna Blum of The Blumz on enjoying piercings.
At the risk of sounding like an old, long gone are the days when piercings and tattoos signified an outsider, rebellious cultural affiliation. Today, they couldn’t be more mainstream and a well-placed piercing, or piercings, is a fine home for some fine jewellery. Personally, I’ll take any opportunity I can get to add some extra sparkle into my life.
I wanted to find out more about this world, so I reached out to piercing pro Anna Blum, who started The Blumz House of Fine Jewelry and Piercings with Ion Blum, founder of Black Line Studio. Located on King Street West in Toronto, their spot strikes the perfect balance between upholding the art of piercing and styling with gorgeous, personal jewellery. Her sparkly curation includes brands like Anita Ko, Maria Tash and Jacquie Aiche.
The vibe of The Blumz space is approachable, relaxed and stylish, which all comes back to Anna’s calm and cool demeanour that puts everyone at ease. Case in point: When my mother asked to get second lobe piercings for Christmas, my brother and I chose to take her to see Anna. She’s since referred some of her 70+ friends (a tough crowd!) to The Blumz.
Read our condensed and edited conversation about building the perfect earring stack, piercing trends, how to ward off ear droopiness and what it’s like to poke a hole in someone’s body.
Were you nervous the first time you pierced someone?
Of course! It was one of my colleagues at Black Line tattoo shop who wanted to get his ears pierced. I was so shaky.
What do you like most about doing piercings?
Ear curations. I love them. Someone comes in and then they show me a little bit of what their style is, if it’s delicate and elegant or bold and edgy or a little bit of a combination. We talk about the type of gold that they want, because there’s white, rose and yellow gold and it’s very popular to combine the gold colours nowadays.
Sometimes people come in with their reference photos like, “I want this.” And I have to say, “Great, but your anatomy’s not great for that. How about we do this instead?”
So ears can be different?
Always. And they’re always different from each other.
What are people into right now? Do they still want to do stacks of earrings?
It depends on the person. We haven’t done an industrial piercing in years.
Those are cool.
They were cool, but people are not doing the bar anymore. We’re doing lot of stacked lobes. There’s a lot of people who have droopy ears so we do one piercing on top just to kind of spice it up. And a lot of people are doing triple flats this year.
I feel like that would hurt. Is there anything that people would be surprised about your work as a piercer?
My biggest secret is that I’m a big wuss when it comes to piercings. I cry whenever I get one done. It’s very, very hard for me to get them. They’re not painful, but my pain tolerance zero.
When I think about the places where you could get a piercing in the past, it was either a jewellery store at the mall or a kind of like scary tattoo parlour and The Blumz is neither of these. What did you want your space to be like?
We are a hub of brands. So you can put your $1,000 piece of jewellery from Maria Tash next to something that complements it but is not that expensive. It’s fun, especially with ear curations, when we can work with your budget and see what can go best. And I find that people now are looking for an experience. They aren’t looking just for a hole.
And this is more approachable.
People still have the mentality that a tattoo place is just these big guys. It’s not like that any more!
What happens to ear lobes as we age? Do they get more droopy?
Whenever someone comes in with big hoops, even the 14 and 16 year olds, I always ask them if they sleep with them in at night. That’s what causes the droopiness.
Is there a way to repair that?
Well, we can either pierce next to it and cover it with a bigger piece of jewellery you can surgically stitch them at a plastic surgeon. Stitch them, wait for six months, then we can pierce next to it. But you will still have a little scar.
When getting a piercing, you definitely have to have a proper piece of jewellery, one that leaves rooms for swelling. I also find that with butterfly backs, the classic earrings, people jam them together. They keep them so tight so that’s producing droopiness as well.
Can you explain the difference between the piercing gun and what you do?
The gun only pushes the jewellery through it, with nothing being sharp. It’s a lot of trauma to the skin. A lot of people, when they take the earring off, you can feel the ball of scar tissue that’s formed. And it’s also not precise.
So when you pierce someone, you use a needle first and then insert the jewellery.
Exactly. It’s super super fast and fairly painless. If a five year old can do it with a straight poker face, I think anyone can.
What about when a kid wants a piercing?
I always tell parents that you need to know your kids. Will they really take care of it? They have to be responsible.
Thank you Anna for giving me the lowdown on piercings and to Rock-It Promotions for facilitating our fun interview day.
Yes, I skipped my usual dispatch last week as I decided to prioritize eNjoYing a few days in Montreal following a press trip to check out a new collaboration between Volvo and SSENSE. Balance, mes amis. More on that city in a future dispatch!
Here’s some fun new-ish-ness to consider this weekend:
Bisha Hotel’s Rooftop Pool 🐳
My favourite Toronto staycation spot, The Bisha Hotel has reopened its rooftop pool for the season. Located on the 44th floor alongside KŌST restaurant, it offers the best views of the city and dinner here is a fun spot to kick off an evening out.
Bar Prima 🦢
New-to-me Bar Prima from the chefs at La Palma is a delightful little jewel box of a space next to old fave Saigon Flower. I especially loved the golden swan faucets in the restrooms, which somehow managed to achieve the unlikely feat of mentally transporting me from a Queen West basement to the Ritz Paris.
Predictions at Chanel 👀
With the fashion set placing bets on who’s going to replace Virginie Viard at Chanel, I’m calling Pierpaolo Piccioli after finding this Easter egg in Anna Wintour’s most recent Vogue editor’s letter: “The beautiful, romantic Valentino dress on Kendall [Jenner] on this page makes me think how much we’ll miss [Pierpaolo], and how very excited I am to see what he does next.” Thoughts?
À bientôt!