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HOUMA — It's not uncommon to see someone with a tattoo nowadays — especially a New Orleans Saints-themed one.

During the team's magical 2009 season that ended with a Super Bowl triumph over the Indianapolis Colts, local tattoo shop owners say they saw a predictable uptick in business.

As the Saints kept winning, so too did the number of tattoos people wanted on their skin, they said.

According to T.J. Parfait, the amount of fleur-de-lis requests he's received in the last few months is staggering.

“We do fleurs-de-lys on a daily basis,” said Parfait, who works at Skin Lab Tattoo and Piercing on Corporate Boulevard in Houma. “When they were winning all those games last season, we had a time where we did 13 of them in a four-day period.”

Throughout history, the fleur-de-lis has represented many things, including royalty and religion. The symbol, an artistic representation of a lily or an iris has been found on ancient Greek and Roman coins.

While popular, fleur-de-lis tattoos aren't the only thing customers have asked for.

“Since we're a customized shop we've done some really cool stuff here,” Parfait said. “We've put the Superdome on people, the championship trophy and a whole bunch of other items that came out great.”

Being a veteran tattoo artist, Randy Benoit of Randy's Fine Line Tattoos in Thibodaux, doesn't know of many things that's captivated the complete interest of his customers more than the New Orleans Saints.

“I remember when they were starting to win a lot, I told my guys to get ready,” Benoit said. “Sure enough, as they pushed toward the Super Bowl and eventually won it, our business really picked up. When it comes to the fleur-de-lis tattoos, a lot of people refer to it as their culture. I don't argue with them because it definitely means something special to them.”

Along with tattooing his fair share of fleurs-de-lys, Benoit has preserved the Super Bowl win on others' skin in a number of other ways.

“One of the cooler things I did was putting a picture of the championship trophy on the backside of a guy's shoulder,” he said.
Upon being prompted, readers responded to The Courier and Daily Comet with their stories and examples of Saints tattoos they have.

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