
Thirty Years
February 1, 2025, marks thirty years since Infinite Body Piercing opened its retail location in Philadelphia. None of us who were around at the beginning could have imagined where we would be today—really, where the piercing industry would be today. Five years ago I wrote about the (abridged) history of the studio when we hit twenty-five years, so I’ll try not to repeat myself. What I’m hoping to do is provide a snapshot of what things were like when we first opened, what the world (and piercing) was like back in 1995.
The first week of February of that year, TLC’s “Creep” was the top song in the country (although “Waterfalls” would be a bigger hit for them later that year). The biggest song of the year was Coolio’s "Gangsta's Paradise" and Hootie & the Blowfish's “Cracked Rear View” was the year's biggest-selling album. Alanis Morissette released her seminal album “Jagged Little Pill,” and No Doubt quietly dropped their third album, “Tragic Kingdom”—though it would take a year for it to get big. We were listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails at the studio (“The Downward Spiral” was released the year before), in addition to The Roots’ “Do You Want More?!!!??!” and Nas’ “Illmatic.”

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction was released the year before, at the end of 1994. Die Hard with a Vengeance was the highest-grossing film worldwide in 1995, and Batman Forever topped the list in the United States. Clueless and Se7en both came out later that year, in addition to Toy Story, the first completely computer-animated feature film. The top TV shows were E.R. (with a young George Clooney), Seinfeld, and Friends, although the O.J. Simpson trial was the television event of the year. For us, the X-Files was required watching on Friday nights (when we weren’t working) and reruns of Xena: The Warrior Princess made for a guilty pleasure on our days off.

1995 marked the beginning of the Internet age: Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon.com all got their start that year. Sony released its revolutionary PlayStation in North America, and Yahoo! incorporated and launched its website. There was a growing body art community online through rec.arts.bodyart, a USENET newsgroup, but Infinite wouldn’t get its first website until 1997, when Shannon Larratt, founder of BME, was living in Philadelphia and set it up for us.
Also in 1995: Starbucks introduced Frappuccinos. Courtney Love infamously crashed Madonna's post-VMA interview with Kurt Loder after she threw her MAC compact towards Madonna's head.
And piercing was… different.
In 1995, navel piercings (mostly for women) were by far the most popular service we offered. We were still riding high on the waves from the Aerosmith video for “Cryin’” released in the summer of ‘93, where Alicia Silverstone (her body double, actually) got her navel pierced. This single-handedly launched piercing into the mainstream more than anything else at the time.
When we opened, we decided to go against the norm at the time and make 12g the minimum size for both navel, tongue, and women’s nipple piercings. (It was thicker jewelry than most other piercers were using, but we saw such a difference in healing that we thought it was the right thing to do.) Tongue piercing was gaining traction, but it wasn’t until the late ‘90s that it really took off, and to where we were doing several dozen tongue piercings a day.
Nostril piercings were occasionally done, but were most often done with rings. (You could still get it done at many places at the mall.) If you wanted a smaller-looking stud you could go with a nostril screw, as NeoMetal press-fit posts were still many years away.
Jewelry was almost exclusively stainless steel; titanium was more expensive, and was often more of a noticeably dull gray color, as mirror-finished titanium jewelry was not yet the norm. We pierced with rings almost exclusively, as quality internally threaded posts were still prohibitively expensive.

We would pierce ears, but not with the popularity that we do today; rook, daith, and industrial piercings were new ideas, and only several years old. Earlobe piercings were still very much the domain of mall kiosk shops offering “free piercing with a purchase of studs.” The exception to this was clients who wanted to start out with a bigger piercing, in anticipation of stretching—and we had many of these.
Earlobe stretching was just starting to become popular, at least among the growing number of clients. The practice was not new: there was reference to it in Modern Primitives, and Body Art magazine (Fakir’s publication) had several features showing on stretched piercings, but it started to take hold in the subculture among body-art enthusiasts.
When we started, there were few companies selling plugs for earlobe stretching, and none affordable. There were no rules—and there was no jewelry, so we had to make it. Friends started a company selling acrylic plugs that made ear stretching affordable and attractive to a larger number of clients, and further popularized earlobe stretching through the ‘90s.
Everything was bigger—and we ran with it. The mantra was, “Go big, or go home.”

We started to experiment with larger-gauge piercings, and first started to experiment with dermal punches—equipment that we may or may not be allowed to use. We also experimented with ear scalpeling and different ways to start with larger-gauge piercings in ears.
And of course, we were known for genital piercings. The piercing that we came from was the domain of gay leathermen and pro-sex feminists, and we became the go-to studio for these procedures. The climate was different, and tattoo studios were just starting to offer piercing; not because they were good at it, but because they saw it as a way to make money. It wasn’t until the late ‘90s that you saw piercing embraced and integrated into tattoo studios; in 1995, we were on our own—and making things up as we went along.
[Accompanying photos are of clients pierced at the studio from the mid-to-late ‘90s. If you find your picture in here and would rather not be included in our gallery, let us know. If not, drop me a line at james@infinitebody.com and let me know how you (and your piercings) are doing after all these years!]
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