life's a runway

Meet the ‘Nasty’ Expensive Hood by Air Manicure

Photo: Helga Traxler

The beauty look at Hood by Air is never quite like other beauty looks. There’s been painful-looking rhinestone braces and last season’s memorable, in-no-way-Kardashian-inspired contouring. This season, to go with the theme of pilgrimage, models wore hairstyles that were one part Mayflower and one part Founding Fathers. Male models got short barristerlike wiglets, and the female models got voluminous curls and pilgrim hats made out of plastic wrap, created by Amy Farid for Bumble and Bumble. All the models also got a nail look that you won’t be spotting in your salons anytime soon: “The nasty nail.”

Manicurist Dawn Sterling explained that Hood by Air founder Shayne Oliver wanted a nail that looked caked with dirt and grime. “We’re doing a nasty nail — there’s no other way to describe it. It’s for the person draped in HBA, who is all about fashion, fishing, and gardening, but doesn’t really give a fuck what anybody else thinks. So yeah, I’m going to be wearing my $25,000 coat and do my fishing, and not care about a nude or a French. It’s like, it’s fucked up, and I love it, and I don’t really care.”

Ironically, the dirty look was created using not-nasty-at-all Chanel polish. Sterling painted black acrylic paint on the nail, and then wiped it off so that the nail looked dipped in dirty water. Chanel Black Satin, Rouge Essentielle, or navy polish simulated a caked-on ring of dirt. Consider this the new high-low anti-manicure.

Meet the ‘Nasty’ Expensive Hood by Air Manicure