At 8:30 AM this morning, Angel Jones arrived at Embassy Tattoo in Adams Morgan, three and a half hours before the shop’s opening. She unfolded her popsicle-printed camp chair, sat down, and waited, just as she did last Friday the 13th in October 2023.
For the tattoo community, Friday the 13th is a special holiday: around the country, shops offer discounted prices for pre-designed flash tattoos. Embassy Tattoo has been offering the superstitious sale for for nine years, and the line wrapped all the way around the block when the store opened today.
On Friday the 13th, the shop offers tattoos at various sizes and levels of detail for $31, $69, and $130 as well as $31 piercings. For Jones, the sale was what made her decide to get her first tattoo in over six years—which, if you were wondering, is a face sporting sunglasses, a mustache, and a fedora.
The event draws both tattooed crowds and blank canvases. Sandy Aguilar of Falls Church got her first tattoo today alongside her friend Emma Liston, who attended the event at Embassy last year. George Washington University students Emily Francis and Caroline Assef came to the event to get matching tattoos to add to their collections, arriving at 9 AM to wait in line.
For shop manager Anthony Pagharion, it’s not just a way to celebrate a date on the calendar but also a way to give back to the city. Artists, piercers, and support staff help plan the event, choose designs beforehand, and then work nonstop for the Embassy’s eight hours of business. Last year, the shop tattooed around 200 people on Friday the 13th.
“During this time, the whole shop comes together to give back to the community,” says Pagharion.
The discount tattooing tradition started at Elm Street Tattoo in Texas. Artist Oliver Peck wanted to tattoo the number 13 on as many people as possible on Friday, June 13, 2008. Since then, tattoo shops around the country have picked up the practice, and designs vary by shop. Embassy offers a fried egg and an avocado among their 100 options, but common designs include unlucky symbols such as a gravestone with the number 13, a lightning bolt, or the grim reaper’s scythe. Nowadays, it’s mostly about cheap tattoos, but it’s also a chance to test your luck in a more permanent way than walking under a ladder.
