Inez Tattoo is named after owner Montana’s grandmother, Inez who was a Collingwood local through and through. She lived there from 1922, worked in the neighbourhood factories (including one on the very same street the studio sits on now!) and stayed put her whole life. She was also a breast cancer survivor, and her experience shaped the way Montana thinks about her work today.
The studio itself is small, tucked away in an alley, but it’s the kind of place that immediately feels warm. Soft couches, leafy plants, music that’s easy to listen to, candles burning. It feels like a place that makes you forget any nerves you walked in with, which matters, because for many of Montana’s clients, this is their first time in a tattoo studio. Alongside all the usual tattoo work, Montana offers Areola Restorative Tattooing for people who’ve had full mastectomies – a deeply personal process that can help bring a sense of wholeness after surgery. It’s quiet, careful work, done with the kind of trust you don’t give just anyone. And here, in a studio named for the woman who inspired it, that trust feels pretty damn well placed.
