Part of Creative Nail Design’s Global Summit was an amazing photographic nail competition, NAILS profiled the winners in Nails File (November 1999) and among them was Michiko Matsushita, a two-time NAILS cover tech. Her beautiful work won her the top honors in three of the competition’s five categories. We thought as this month’s cover photo, her work was the perfect statement about how nails and nail technicians are heading into the future and, like the computer industry, are being rapidly subjected to more new technology than ever before.

To create this startling look at the future of nails, Matsushita took tiny computer parts and wires and embedded them under clear acrylic. She then took wire and metal and wrapped it carefully around the model’s fingers and hands, as it to remind us that it is not just about the nails…hand care, as well as client care, is just as important in the new millennium.