Cassi Lopez - 20 Years of Piercing
Disclaimer: Before you watch this interview it’s very important you understand we had technical issues with our mics and had to make do with our external audio! We did what we could to save the audio and apologise for the echo! I hope you still enjoy the interview, the transcript is also available below.
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Jay: Thank you for doing this.
Cassi: Of course, thank you for wanting to do this. Do you want me to move this? Is it in your way or?
*Beep*
I’ll spit my gum out so i’m not chewing in your ear.
*Beep*
Is there anything in my teeth?
*Beep*
Cassi: My name is Cassi Lopez, and I am the owner of So Gold Studios in Brooklyn, New York.
Jay: Were you born and raised in Brooklyn?
Cassi: I was born and raised in Long Island, my Mother lived in Long Island, my Father lived in Bed Stuy Brooklyn.
Jay: Okay
Cassi: So I have a tonne of family in Brooklyn, I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn growing up. But, I was raised in the suburbs.
Jay: Your Dad helped you build your first studio?
Cassi: My Stepfather, my biological Father was the one who lived in Brooklyn. But my Stepfather, my biological Father past away when I was young, my Stepfather helped me build the first So Gold. And then this new So Gold it was just me and Lynda putting things together and Vicki and Taylor putting things together, and then I paid contractors to do all the big stuff.
Jay: That’s great, you need contractors.
Cassi: It’s a big move.
Jay: Is he proud of it? Does he approve?
Cassi: Very. It's funny, he actually painted the bathroom and did all that studs because he felt like it was the only thing he could really do.
Jay: He’s helping!
Cassi: Yeah! And he’s very cute, he’s very much like a typical little Puerto Rican old Dad.
Jay: I love that
Cassi: He just wants to help all the time.
Jay: That’s what everyone wants isn’t it?
Cassi: It’s very cute.
Jay: You have been piercing since 2003 which makes it 20 years this year.
Cassi: Yeah
Jay: Does it feel like 20 years?
Cassi: Yeah! It feels like 40 years! It does, I’m exhausted.
Jay: Have you felt that within the industry, obviously it's changed, 20 years is a long time things are going to change. Do you feel like the progression within your career has been a reflection on the whole industry? Do you feel like we still have a long way to go?
Cassi: There’s always, well the best thing about piercing is that it always changes. Everything is constantly evolving. That’s my favourite part which is what I love about working as a piercer, constantly learning new things, constantly doing new things. I’m not the kind of person who can like stay stationary for too long, I need to be on the move with everything. So piercing allows me to do that and it’s been great because the industry as a whole is also constantly moving forward. That’s what’s so good about teaching, I get to teach classes all over the world now.
Jay: That’s so cool.
Cassi: I get to do all sorts of fun stuff and I mean the industry has changed so much over the past 20 years, especially now because piercing is so popular. And it’s like, it’s become a whole new thing. It’s truly wild.
Jay: Because when I think about when I was young, and like my ear was pierced, it was done with like a gun, at the back of a barbers shop. That’s what I would think of when I hear piercing but then now this is what I think of, which it’s not even in a tattoo shop, it’s completely unrelated and its own thing which is super cool.
Cassi: Piercing has separated itself from tattooing a lot, which I’m sure you’ve noticed as a tattooer.
Jay: Yeah, it’s cool because I think,
Cassi: It’s so different,
Jay: It’s really different! And it’s not, I’m not shitting on tattoo shops that have piercing studios, because there’s a lot of shops that do that really really well, and they have amazing piercers there aswell. But it’s really nice to come into a space like this and it’s less intimidating. I feel like tattooing has also gotten less intimidating.
*A FEW MOMENTS LATER*
Jay: Okay! So piercing has changed, we love that it’s changes,
Cassi: Yes it’s great! It’s the best part.
Jay: How long do you think it took you to find your style and direction in piercing?
Cassi: It took a few years, it was when I started working at New York Adorned that I really discovered how much I loved gold because when I started working there I was a silver baby.
Jay: Really?!
Cassi: Oh yeah, I had all crap jewellery, I had, you know, I didn’t realise how much I loved gold and it started with rose gold. It was like my intro to gold.
Jay: That’s cool, I like that. I feel like a lot of people do that.
Cassi: Very much so.
Jay: I feel like they’re one or the other,
Cassi: Yeah,
Jay: I find it very impressive when people can mix metals, like i’m not that person.
Cassi: Me neither. Taylor mixes metals really well *looks at Taylor in the distance*
Jay: Yeah, I think it looks amazing on so many people, I just,
Cassi: And like, I don’t know how to do it on myself. I feel like I can’t. Like I can’t bring myself to.
Jay: Okay so, ear styling. Styling has become a huge thing, it’s a huge part of what you do here. Do you think that’s always been a thing? Do you think it’s more recently became a surge that people are paying. more attention to?
Cassi: It’s always been an aspect of what we do.
Jay: Right,
Cassi: When someone comes in for a piercing, we have to look at their anatomy, we have to make sure they have the anatomy. Which to me is some degree of styling to an extent. Helping people pick our jewellery, all that stuff is some degree of styling. So to me it's kind of just been there but it’s in the last couple of years become a whole big, like a reason that people want piercings.
Jay: Yeah for sure,
Cassi: The fact that anyone wants piercings, is insane to me. I never thought i’d have a career that people aspired to have.
Jay: Really?
Cassi: Yeah, I don’t know it’s wild to me.
Jay: It’s funny because I think people view um, i’m friends with a lot of piercers, like i’m around it a lot so I don’t really think about it and obviously when you learn tattooing things are obviously very close together, like our worlds mix. But it is a whole jewellery section of its own, its a whole division of jewellery which I think is interesting to see different brands like BVLA and other brands like that who solely do this kind of jewellery are now high end jewellery. It’s not, no diss to titanium, titanium is very important but like it's not a multicoloured titanium bar in your navel. You have all of these other things now, you can be pierced with you can just keep in which is super cool.
Cassi: That’s the beauty of it all.
Jay: You’re part of APP, what is APP?
Cassi: So the APP is an international non profit organisation, that basically is a health and safety organisation. So we help disseminate bad piercing information, make sure that the studios that obtain APP memberships are using good quality jewellery, are using, safe piercing practices. And then we hold conferences every year, so that way piercers can essentially just keep up with their education.
Jay: So you mentioned that you teach, do you teach solely through APP?
Cassi: Yes, yeah, I teach solely through APP. There’s a lot of piercers that will teach outside of the APP, they will hold their own courses and stuff like that. I don’t have time so I do everything through that.
Jay: You’re very busy!
Cassi: Everything that I do is with the organisation. So I teach at conferences every year, and i’ll be teaching in Brazil this summer, there’s a, almost like the Brazilian piercing organisation, GEP. So i’ll be there, teaching there. I’m really excited.
Jay: What made you decide to open your own studio?
Cassi: OOh, so, I spent years being really really sick. Um, and then when I went into remission, I went to my doctors appointment, found out I was in remission and I was like, I leerily left that hospital and I said to my dad, I said “I think i’m going to open a studio” and he was like “do it.” And that was kind of it. It was just like the Spurr of the moment like, I finally had the ability to do whatever I wanted. For so many years I didn’t know what would happen, I didn’t know whether I was going to be okay so I had to play it safe, i’m like i’ve got nothing to loose now.
Jay: That’s so cool,
Cassi: Yeah, just dove right in.
Jay: Do you think it changed a lot? Just for people who don’t know Cassi has Brain surgery
Cassi: Yeah, I had a few.
Jay: So do you think it changed your view, obviously for the studio It did, do you think it changed your view on how you approach a lot of things?
Cassi: It changed my entire life. My entire life was flipped upside down. Um I don’t take things for granted, I don’t wait, I don’t wait around for anything.
Jay: I don’t think you really waited before!
Cassi: In my head! In my head, I felt myself like waiting for things. Waiting for life to happen. I don’t wait anymore. I don’t have time.
Jay: That’s fair.
Cassi: There is no time. There’s no time, go big or go home. So that’s what I’m doing everyday, I’m going big everyday.
Jay: Why Is the studio called So Gold?
Cassi: Um, to be perfectly honest, it was initially suppose to be a play off of my social media presence which s Cassisoclassy, which if anybody know me, they know that it’s just a joke because I am a gross human. Um, but, originally I wanted to call it so studios, as like, to just be, so it could be anything. I didn’t want it to just be considered a piercing studio, because I have grand ideas of what I want my life to be. So I wanted to have the ability to make this place whatever I wanted it to be, but my lawyer was like there’s already a so studios so you can’t do that we have to think of something. And I had to think of it kind of on the fly because I had just found my original location and I was getting ready to sign the lease and I had to get all of my paperwork aligned.
Jay: Business licensing and everything,
Cassi: Yeah, and so my lawyer was like “call me in an hour with a name” and I was like SHIT, so i’m like panicking, and I’m like what do I love, what do I love? I love gold, So Gold. it was literally that, I was like “ah, So Gold”
Jay: The first location it was just you right?
Cassi: mmhm, me by myself for the first year and a half.
Jay: Do you feel like when you moved to this location that you really needed other people? did you need to be around other people?
Cassi: Well what happened was, when we came out of covid, I was already booked all the time, and it just got so out of control. I was just swamped, I was taking clients early morning and staying super late. I was exhausted. And I was like I need to hire someone, and im very perticular about who I work with.
Jay: That’s good, that’s a good thing to have.
Cassi: So i had worked with Taylor for a couple years, at New York Adorned, and Taylor was looking for a studio, so I was like *hand movements towards body*
Jay: The jewellery that you pick, do you hand pick everything yourselves?
Cassi: Everything.
Jay: That’s so cool.
Cassi: There’s not a single piece in this case that I wouldn’t ware. Even if it’s not in the gold colour that I would wear it in, there’s nothing in here that I wouldn’t ware, I couldn't sell jewellery to someone that I didn’t like.
Jay: For sure.
Cassi: I’m not, I’m not a good liar.
Jay: You guys do custom stuff too right?
Cassi: Yeah
Jay: How does that work?
Cassi: Lynda, she handles all, she’ll like bust out her procreate and her, what is it her app? Photoshop! And she will whip up like, pieces for people with different stone colours just so they can like get a visual. it’s incredible.
Jay: How does it work? How does the process work from like that, does she talk to, is it done with the company who originally makes the jewellery?
Cassi: Yeah, so basically it’s mostly done with BVLA, they have the most selection, they have the most options in terms of stones. Um so she will sit down with them and BVLA will custom make things too. If someone has a piece in mind that’s not made, BVLA can make it. we just have to come up with a doodle, and they’ll make it.
Jay: That’s so cool.
Cassi: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. So it’s a lot easier to customise things specifically with them. Um, and Lynda is just like amazing with everything but she’s really good at that kind of stuff.
Jay: It’s crazy because I’ve been getting BVLA and gold jewellery, and as we realised today we’ve actually known each other for a long time. I’ve known you a long time, and I’ve known Sophie a long time, and it’s crazy to think about what you would think piercing jewellery is vs what it actually is now. The fact you can even customise something like that I mean.
Cassi: its night and day,
Jay: it’s just really lovely, its super cool.
Cassi: it’s the best!
Jay: Do you think that the industry is going to keep going more like this, more like private piercing studios?
Cassi: Absolutely. Especially post covid. It’s funny because we always worked like this, pre covid, I always functioned as a private studio. And then once Covid hit everyone started to adapt to what we do.
