Henk Schiffmacher tattoos two leather cooking aprons and they’re seriously amazing

I usually cook in an apron with some vague text on it, received during a press event (‘I only eat sustainably caught fish”) or for my birthday (“Warning: wine consumed while cooking”). All fine, because that apron gets dirty and can go in the wash, so if I look like an idiot, so be it. But that was the old me. Because ever since I saw this cooking apron, I don’t want to wear anything else.

In fact, I’d even want to wear this apron outside the kitchen. White shirt, tights, black boots—I think I’ve found my new patio outfit. There is one downside: you can’t really sit comfortably in it, so I’ll just have to drink standing up from now on, which isn’t a problem either.

Butcher’s son

The apron in question is by the well-known brand Witloft and has been tattooed all over the front by none other than Henk Schiffmacher. The master tattoo artist previously designed a chef’s knife for Diamant Sabatier, and that was another gem. The collaboration with Sabatier wasn’t entirely coincidental, by the way: Schiffmacher comes from a family of butchers in Harderwijk, so cutting tools are nothing new to him. And with this apron—or rather, these two aprons—he returns to his roots.

’Barbacoa’ and ‘Buccanian girl’

The two rugged aprons, called ’Barbacoa’ and ‘Buccanian girl’, tell a unique story of their own, inspired by meat culture and the preparation and preservation of meat by indigenous tribes. ‘Barbacoa’ tells the story of how barbecuing originated among indigenous peoples in Central America. At first, this was done underground, with large cuts of meat or whole animals left to cook over coals for days. Later, barbacoa became not just a way of cooking, but an art form with unique shapes and silhouettes.

The second design, called ‘Buccanian girl’, is about semi-legal merchant sailors (pirates), who used to cross the ocean on their own initiative to sail to the areas where indigenous peoples lived. There, the merchant sailors adopted their techniques for preparing and preserving meat.

Henk is a fan, and so am I

Henk has been a huge fan of Witloft’s robust leather aprons for years. So it was Henk himself who took the first step and approached Witloft. “I think the aprons are really cool, but they can always be bolder, if you ask me! I saw the opportunity to do something awesome with them. That’s how the idea came about to put a tattoo on the entire apron. After all, a piece of leather is also skin!”, says an enthusiastic Henk. Three weeks later, the drawings arrived at Witloft and they could start production of these rugged limited-edition aprons. This is simply done in the Netherlands, by the way.

Limited edition, so be quick

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