Low Class Signalling

Maybe This Reason article about luxury fashions answers, in some way, why tattoos and body piercing have become so accepted.

The traditionally low class ways of signalling are blunt instruments. They scream hey look at me- this is my level of sophistication- etc... But, in the world of fashion, with brands depreciating in value, one would have to be quite educated in the quality of workmanship in order to pick up a signal. So people go to the blunt instruments to get their message out. But then the incongruity of a middle to high class person with a low class medium pasted on their body kind of screws up the message...