FASHION Magazine

From lips to nails, shades of burgundy were all over the Fall 2012 runways—and, because stars are always the first to embrace a trend, the deep red lip has now dominated red carpets. Camilla Belle and Lana Del Rey both wore the colour at the Met Gala, Katy Perry can’t stop matching her just-dyed indigo hair with her lipstick, and even Jennifer Lopez is a fan of the vampy look. Of course, Nail Corner wanted to take the trend a step further: why just paint your lips and nails a shade of burgundy when you can actually paint tiny lips on your nails?

See the burgundy lip manicure! »

Considering how long it’s been popular, can black nail polish now be considered classic? Lauren Conrad brought it to the masses on many an episode of The Hills, it’s a common colour for starlets to wear on the red carpet, and almost every polish brand has one—or more!—black shades. While a dark manicure still stands out, a graphic design can give it even more power. This week, inspiration came from Chloé‘s Spring 2012 collection. I mixed stripes of black and white polish to create a slim design and left a sliver bare in the middle—just like the deep V-neck of the Chloé button-down.

Check out the black and white manicure! »

Our spring trend guide continues to be a source of inspiration for Nail Corner, and this week Burberry Prorsum’s tribal prints have been transformed into a manicure. For this design, mushroom-grey and deep-blue stripes are brought to life with alternating rows of neon orange, creating a zigzag pattern that almost pulses off the nail. And just like Burberry’s pattern, this manicure is asymmetrical—which adds even more movement and fun to the design.

Grab some nail art brushes and find out how to do this mani! »

The single-nail style of gradient manicure has been making the rounds on nail blogs recently—thanks in part to its simple application method (I swear!) and its endless colour possibilities. It’s also a favourite of L.A.-based nail artist Madeline Poole, whose cheery sunset-ish designs will convince anyone to make this her next manicure. And when it comes to translating spring’s underwater trend into nail art, what could be better than a deep blue to foamy white gradient? Peter Pilotto’s aquatic print—as well as the illustration that accompanied it in our March issue—served as the perfect Nail Corner inspiration. Time to break out a makeup sponge and find out how to do this manicure!

Go under the sea with this gradient mani! »

Cotton candy colours and oversized lace flowers were all over Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2012 collection, as well as many a trend report. But unlike other delicate prints, Louis Vuitton’s take on femininity seems almost animated: pale shades of saccharine colours get a bit of bounce with large lace eyelets. As inspiration for Nail Corner, the pastels were right in line with many new nail polish shades—it was definitely hard to choose just five colours to use!

See the pastel Louis Vuitton lace manicure! »

Miley Cyrus has been keeping a low profile lately—the salacious headlines that used to follow her every move have disappeared and instead we’ve been treated with some pretty spectacular style moments. (She was beyond flawless at the Vanity Fair Oscar party, as pictured above.) And now it seems Cyrus is getting into our favourite trend: the nail art game. She’s been twitpic-ing her polish picks for a while, but yesterday she debuted a manicure that’s definitely next level.

Sometimes the colours in a nail polish collection are so perfect together that it’s hard to pick just one to use in a manicure. (A #firstworldproblem that’s also common when shopping for clothes—it’s much more satisfying to buy the whole look, not one standalone item!) While each shade from the upcoming Thakoon for Nars nail collaboration (available May 1) stands out on its own, together they encapsulate the vibrancy of Thakoon’s Spring 2012 collection. They also share a source of inspiration: Indian spice markets influenced the highly saturated colours, which range from cyan blue to orchid purple. As for Nail Corner’s inspiration, this design was all about bringing Thakoon’s cowboy-meets-Bollywood prints to life.

Read on and see our Thakoon manicure! »

The celebration of spring fashion continues on our fingertips! From Pantone’s colour of the year to our spring trend report, things are looking orange. As the official shade of the season, it’s a colour that has quite the range: runways showed tangerine, coral, neon orange and everything in between. But it was a frothy electric orange and white combination from Pink Tartan that suited the needs of Nail Corner best. (While perhaps serving double-duty by slightly looking like a speckled egg, just in time for Easter?)

Read on and see our orange crush manicure! »

Oh, Rihanna! We were starting to get worried about her, but this look from Wednesday’s Battleship photocall has alleviated all concern. The singer—who has a starring role in the board game-turned-film—looked positively glowing with luminous skin and bouncy, blown out curls. While she’s been rocking this blond hair for the last few weeks, we have to admit that the intentional toupee-like crown of dark brown roots are (pardon the pun) growing on us. With the heavy fringe, she almost looks like Nicole Richie, no?

Aside from the excitement of the movie itself, obviously the best thing from The Hunger Games are the crazy manicures that Effie Trinket wears throughout. Unfortunately, only of a few are available to view close up (come on, Lions Gate Films, give fans a full gallery of nail art screen grabs!) but to our delight, one of the more intricate designs was shared by Elizabeth Banks—who of course, played the role of Effie. These Hunger Games nails include the soon-to-be-everywhere trend of caviar manicures—that is, manis with tiny beads that add playful texture—and thus, inspiration for this week’s Nail Corner was born!

Read on and find out how to do nails like Effie! »

See our behind-the-scenes gallery from Ruffian »
Learn how to do the gold foil mani! »

In the final days of Toronto Fashion Week, one thing was starting to become very apparent: deep red nails are going to be huge for fall. Chloé Comme Parris and Pink Tartan both used the same maroon Essie shade—“Wicked”—and similar colours had been popping up at international shows all season, including Ferragamo, Jenny Packham and Bill Blass. Rachel Roy leaned towards an aubergine-tinted red, while Yigal Azrouel dubbed his shade of choice “pinot noir.” At L.A.M.B., burgundy polish covered just the moon, leaving the rest of the nail bare. And where red appears, gold seems to follow: the Toronto shows for Jeremy Laing and Ruffian paired both colours on the same nail, whereas Marchesa alternated all-burgundy (Deborah Lippmann’s “Single Ladies”) and all-gold manicures down the runway.

This week’s Nail Corner steals inspiration straight from the pages of our Spring trend report: a delightful mixed-prints look from Carven’s Spring 2012 collection. The bright-pink and lime-meets-chartreuse chevron pattern has a hand-woven quality to it, with soft lines and organic shapes. When translated to a manicure, the prints vary on each nail, allowing them to mix across each finger.

Check out the mixed prints mani! »