Images courtesy of Ernest Green and Seventh House PR, respectively

According to Jan Arnold, Creative Director of CND, the classic French manicure we all grew up with is out.  Arnold, known for her artistic over the top nail designs states “French for me now… belongs on the golf course or on the tennis courts … It’s too preppy, too sporty.” Arnold lists other manicure faux pas, “I think anything too literal I don’t like; painting a sunset, painting a landscape.  I think [nail design] should never really match what you’re wearing; it should be complementary.  It should be it’s own artistic element that adds to the total look. In real life I always get asked, ‘should you match your fingers and your toes?’ I’m like No, no, no you got 20 digits you might as well use them all, let them all be a canvas.”

Images courtesy of Zang Toi

If you’re looking for a fun twist on your old middle school favorite, Rebecca Isa, Creative Director of Zoya, offers a great solution straight off the runways of Zang Toi.  To complement Zang’s American Girl Inspired Collection, Isa applied two coats of a vibrant purple shade with red glass flecks.  She topped that off with an opaque lavender, sporting silver glass flecks just on the tip.  Isa recommends using a striper brush just to freehand the top edge of the nail.  “It’s a modern French manicure, very thin, curved,” shares Isa.  “Gem tones are normally thought of as a fall look but Zang of course twists everything, so his French has the gem tone with a pastel for spring.”

Tadashi Shoji spring 2015 images courtesy of HL Group

If jazzing up the classic French feels a little too tame, you can apply the same idea to a mesh manicure like Katie Jane Hughes, Global Colour Ambassador for butter LONDON did for Tadashi Shoji’s spring 2015 collection.  “… in his collection there’s all this gorgeous lace as always which is why we love to work with him, but he’s also injected this bit of mesh into the pieces which has really made it very current, very fresh and modern …  So we really honed in on that and literally put it on the nail.” explains Hughes.  To create the look, Hughes starts with a nude new shade called High Tea as the base.  She then uses a striping brush and a gold polish called The Full Monty to create the stripes.  “It’s an interesting gold as it looks silver in certain light.  It’s a really beautiful tone,” shared Hughes.  To successfully recreate this look, make sure when you place the stripes down, you go all one way and then go back the other way, Hughes says, while demonstrating the technique.  She also mentions that you should tailor your brushes, feel free to cut them down to get them as thin as you need them (you can even turn a regular brush into a striping brush with a few snips!)

Images from The Blonds spring 2015 courtesy of Ernest Green

For really creative runway nails, The Blonds always takes the cake.  Jan Arnold and her team used about forty feet of chain and over 10,000 crystals, studs and gems to help bring The Blonds “Gangsta Genie” nails to life.  “The gangsta side we did long square nails…very 80’s, a lot of piercing, a lot of teardrops.  Then the genie side is where the real refinement comes in; a lot of filagree and beading and handwork.”  Think tattoo art, red roses, chains, pearls, and flames.  To take nail art really over the top one model wore a knuckle ring created of a genie bottle which when squeezed, released a cloud of pink smoke.  “Nails should be that ultimate decorative element, that key accessory that completes the look.  I mean that’s what nails are for and any woman who uses their nail with just a single color is missing out on an opportunity to be artistic.  It’s a cheap thrill … I would pay a couple hundred bucks for these nails; that’s nothing.” Arnold says while showing off her own metal armor nails complete with a tiny metal vase.

Libertine spring 2015 images courtesy of Bennet Cobliner

Arnold created similarly wild manicures at Libertine, Johnson Hartig, the designer behind the label Libertine told Arnold to go crazy and have fun with the nails, and crazy she went!  “Johnson is known for the skull and for the skeleton so we did a sugar skull using vinyl luxe with accenting colors.  We hand painted the rib cage of the skeleton and then we couldn’t help ourselves; we went all the way to a 3D skull made out of liquid and powder acrylic and we wired the jaw so the jaw actually moves and there’s a little gold tooth right in the front.  We made 22 of the skulls. So I believe maybe 10 models will wear one skull on each hand,” she explains.

So ditch your classic French and opt for a more creative approach!

—Janine Silver