About Avant-Garde

Avant-Garde has one of the longest histories with Body Piercing in South-Eastern Wisconsin. With combined experience dating more than 50 years back, Avant-Garde has a lot to tell.

The Beginning

Avant-Garde as a company started in January 1999 in Watertown, WI. shortly after Jim Melotte, having sold a very notable shop on Milwaukee's fashionable east side. Having established a Watertown store, Jim began receiving complaints that water town was too far to go. So Jim and his business partner at the time came to West Allis in July of 1999 looking to establish another shop. They found a vacant store front at 7219 W. Greenfield Ave. The business has been located at that address ever since.

A New Future

After of number of years Jim's former business partner decided to leave the business and a newcomer stepped up, Brent Holmes. He had been around the shop for years at that point and Jim took him on as an apprentice. As the years went on Brent began buying percentages of the business and has now become an equal partner. Together the two found renewed vigor in a time of drought and ended up purchasing the building from their former landlord. After an exhausting, three year remodeling which sometimes felt like reconstruction, they completed all remodeling projects in late 2006. To this date it is the most clean, sanitary, and hi-tech piercing facility in South-Eastern Wisconsin.

The Business expands

In late 2001 and early 2002, Jim and Brent began searching for new locations to expand their business. At first they began to look back to Jim's roots, the east side of Milwaukee. Not finding a suitable location there they decided to look a new direction, and break the mold once again, by opening in Downtown Waukesha. At first, almost no locations had everything that Brent and Jim were looking for, until one day they met Scott V. Scott owns and operates American Tattoo, LLC., and has done so for over 20yrs. After speaking with Scott, Brent and Jim had made a decision, they would open up inside of American Tattoo. The shop officially opened in May of 2002, and have been there ever since providing high quality service to the City of Waukesha, and to the surrounding community.

Moving Forward

After a long great run in Waukesha, the store closes down. With the tougher economical times of the 2009-2010 fiscal collapse the expanded location just no longer seemed viable and unfortunately had to be cut. And despite being hit with major remodeling after a traffic incident the West Allis Store is newly remodeled and ready for all of your piercing needs. This has lead to some great new opportunities as well for the clients of Avant-Garde in a customer reward program, as well as email specials delivered on a roughly monthly basis.