Seventeen years under the needle. Still to this day.
I’m Benny Aquilina. Benny Aquatatts to anyone who knows me. I got my first tattoo at eighteen and it never stopped there. Seventeen years of collecting work, from one of Sydney’s best all the way international.
Obsessed with the craft.
What started as a single piece became an obsession with the artwork, the artists and the culture around it. Seventeen years later I’m living it every day, running a tattoo studio in the heart of the Gold Coast, there from the first line of every piece to the last.
TEL isn’t a brand built at a distance. It was built at the counter of a working studio.
Learned the hard way.
The collection started in Sydney’s chairs under Ollie, one of Sydney’s best, who has tattooed almost my entire body and still counts me as his most heavily tattooed client. Seventeen years on, that work has held to a standard most wouldn’t.
From there it went as far as Bali. My entire back was removed by laser and reworked over three days straight, two artists in the room. My chest was rebuilt over five full-day sessions, new work over old.
Sit through work like that and you learn what lasts. Not the session. The standard behind it, in the weeks, months and years after the needle.
The elite lifestyle.
TEL began with one idea. The elite lifestyle isn’t reserved for a few. It’s a choice, and a standard you hold yourself to. Everyone has it in them. Most people never decide to use it.
This life is the same for everyone. The early starts. The late finishes. The work nobody sees. The decision to do it right the first time instead of cutting corners.
Quality is never luck. It’s a decision, repeated every day. TEL holds itself to that exact line. No easy way. No filler. No shortcuts. Everything earns its place, one chapter at a time.
Why TEL exists.
I didn’t set out to start a brand. I set out to stop handing my clients anything I wouldn’t put on my own skin first.
TEL is new. The standard behind it isn’t. Proven in a working studio, on people I see again weeks later, and on my own back and chest. Nothing leaves our hands unless it has earned its place.
A movement, not a product line.
I wear the brand as a mark. No codes. No shortcuts. No noise.
TEL is for the people who hold themselves to a higher standard, in the work and in the essentials they choose to surround themselves with. For the ones who refuse to settle when most people accept. The ones who do it properly, do it once and do it right. If that’s you, you’re already part of the TEL family.
Still in the chair.
Seventeen years on, I’m still in the chair. These days it’s Valerio Ciciarelli, an international artist, local at my own studio. From one of Sydney’s best, all the way international, to work that now happens under my own roof.
The collection never stopped. Neither did the standard. Read Valerio’s write-up →
Chapter Two.
Chapter Two is in development. Run 01. When it’s ready, you’ll hear it from me first: the date, the story behind it, and the doors a full day before anyone else.
Earned. Not given.
Much love and respect,
Benny
Chapter Two · Run 01
The list hears first.
One email when it is named, and the doors 24 hours before anyone else.