Basic Nails Rule at New York Fashion Week

Photo: Essie

While fashion week’s over the top makeup and dramatic hairstyles are fun to see, we’re on the lookout for tips and tricks we can actually use at home. This season, over-the-top nail art has yet to make an appearance; designers are favoring simpler looks. In fact, the manicurists backstage are using the most basic tools—top coat, base coat, and remover—to create next-level looks. Here, three from-the-pros ideas for using what you already have in totally new ways.

Use base coat to tone down color
At Alexander Wang, manicurist Michelle Saunders layered Essie’s Ridge Filling Base Coat ($8) over two coats of Au Natural, a sheer beige, to tone down the hue. “It’s like putting a Valencia filter on the nail,” she explained backstage. “It neutralizes the color and cuts out the gray.” The result: a your-nails-but-better manicure.

Create effects with remover.
We picked up this shortcut for a marble-manicure look at Opening Ceremony, and it’s so easy. CND creative director Jan Arnold followed three layers of candy-colored Vinylux polishes with a drop of acetone remover. Voiià: the effect literally creates itself, no special nail-art tools required.

Simplify ombré with topcoat.
All you need for a gradated effect are a few nail polish shades and a topcoat. For Rebecca Minkoff’s “freehand watercolor” look, Saunders painted the lower half of the nail with a cornflower blue before layering a mint green on the upper half. A thin red “fault line” was brushed in the middle of nails. While the nail polish was still wet, Saunders applied Essie’s Good To Go Topcoat ($10) over the entire nail, blending toward the tip. “The nail needs to be wet,” she emphasized—so this is best done one or two nails at a time.

Use negative space as nail art.

“This season is all about simple nail art and negative space,” said Jin Soon Choi backstage at Prabal Gurung. “My hand was shaking this morning, but thankfully the new nail art is an imperfect look.” She said you can skip a base coat if you’re in a hurry, and just paint horizontal lines up the side of the nail. For Prabal Gurung she used Sally Hansen shades in a peachy coral, lavender, and white and sealed with a topcoat, leaving the majority of the nail exposed under clear polish. At Creatures of Comfort, Alicia Torello for Zoya painted only the tip and bottom of the nail. “Like a bare midriff, negative space is now being incorporated into the body of the nail, not just at the moon area like in the past,” Torello said. At Nonoo, nails were painted a creamy white while a thin vertical stripe was left bare.