God, my thumb looks boring,”I thought as I scrolled Instagram late one recent winter evening, disappearing down a nail-art rabbit hole. For years I'd been loyal to the same polish, a hue so neutral it blends into my skin like foundation, and yet, driven back inside (and back insane) by Omicron, I suddenly found myself lusting over photos of costume designer Miyako Bellizzi's ombré talons. They were ultra-long and coffin-shaped—not to be confused with the ‘almond' tips, or ‘tapered squares'I discovered as I scanned captions elsewhere. I may as well have been on Duolingo; I was learning a whole new language. Returning to Bellizzi's feed, I wondered: can she order an Uber with those things on? How does she floss? And also: do I dare?
I did not dare, not at first. I was social distancing, after all, and spicing up my fingers didn't strike me as 'essential. Instead, I daydreamed about outré nails—the ones London-based artist Sylvie Macmillan devised for the spring/summer 2022 Dries Van Noten show, imitating the collection's fabric on elongated fingertips; the jewelled, anime-inspired stiletto-shaped tips Los Angeles-based Coca Michelle creates for Megan Thee Stallion. I watched nail-art tutorials on TikTok. I devoured the nail news from the couture runways—the Dracula-inspired claws dangling off models' hands at Viktor & Rolf, and the flesh-toned daggers on view at Glenn Martens's Jean Paul Gaultier debut. Venturing back outside, I was struck by how many New York City storefronts that had been emptied out during the pandemic were now filled by salons offering Japanese-style nail art. Apparently, I'm far from alone in gravitating toward nails as the ornament du jour.
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