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“I think that interest in tattoos — especially the big landscape tattoos — will wane as people get older and see that their 20- or 35-year old tattoos don’t look nearly as beautiful as they did when they were freshly done,” Ms. Jablonski said from field work in South Africa. “Also, tattoos tend to look better on young, taut skin than on older, wrinkled skin.”

Among the signs of decline are that tattoos are now used like medic-alert bracelets, to alert doctors to conditions such as diabetes. Justin Trudeau, who has bet his political future on the middle class, has a Haida raven on his left shoulder. Justin Bieber has pretty much full sleeves, and Jesus on his left calf. Once especially taboo for Jews, who are said to be barred from Jewish cemeteries if they get inked (although few actually enforce this), there is now a growing interest in “kosher” tattoos.

“Tattoos are popular in parts of the world where they never were before, and among people that may have never dreamt of being tattooed,” Ms. Jablonski said. “In certain groups of youth, tattooing clearly has passed its peak, but in others it is just gaining strength and interest.”

Last month, for example, Toronto launched a red-yellow-green scoring system for tattoo parlours, similar to one for restaurants, and a York University sociologist this week revealed an archive for tattoos that memorialize loved ones. A special tattoo edition of Toronto’s alt-weekly NOW magazine described such academic interest as a sign of the “new seriousness with which the art is regarded,” and the spread of tattoo parlours as an indicator of urban gentrification, like espresso bars.