We’re in Thessaloniki, a Greek city renowned for its multicultural, international spirit. Here we find Dirty Roses, opened by Kostas Tzikalagias 14 years ago, a shop where, like in the city itself, you’ll come across a cultural mishmash of styles ranging from Asian to Dark and Cartoon, in Baroque surroundings which are home to a tight-knit crew, as Kostas himself tells us in this interview.
Welcome to our shop. I hope that you like our deliberately messy little Greek tattoo shop! I’m Kostas and I welcome you to our shop! Dirty Roses has been here for 14 years in Thessaloniki, Greece, right in the centre of this lovely city.
Thessaloniki is a multicultural city with many people from all over Greece and the entire world. This gives the city a unique personality. And what’s more, I think that despite the fact that it’s no longer such a small city as it once was, it still doesn’t have the problems you get in a metropolis.
The shop is laid out on two floors. On the first floor there’s the reception, two tattoo cabins and one for piercing. On the second floor we have three more cabins for tattoo.
Right now we’ve got six members: myself (Kostas Tzikalagias), Alex Gotza, Rasel, Rino, Dinos and Vasilis, the piercer. Alex loves Neo Traditional tattoo. Rasel has a style somewhere between Neo Traditional and Dark Comics with a kind of dirty mood, Rino draws cartoon characters.
Dino’s style is mainly Traditional and Old School and last but not least, me! I love the Asian style. I do Japanese and Tibetan tattoos and I must confess I adore large scale tattoos. My favourites are Black and Grey but I often use colour depending on the design or the inclination of the client.
