With Shakespeare’s birthplace just down the road from me, I was inspired by the playwright and his famous plays for my design.  Comedy and Tragedy are complementary while at the same time, they’re complete opposites. This increases the impact each feeling has when the other is present. My design features many elements of comedy and tragedy including: the star-crossed lovers nail inspired by Romeo and Juliet; The Poison Apple Nail inspired by Snow White’s poison apple with the witches from Macbeth inside. Macbeth also inspired my masked lady with the blooded knife. The mask featuring a half mask of Bottom from Midsummer Night’s Dream with dream bubbles and a scroll and quill represent the playwright himself. The Phantom Nail is inspired by the two sides of the mask featuring a lip print mask over a mask. The design features many masks from the drama masks with one sad face and one happy face along with masked faces with something different underneath, to demonstrate that you should never judge someone at face value because you never know what is going on behind the mask. The design features elements of the theatre to tie the design together such as masks and the theatre curtain. Comedy in Shakespearian time consisted of jokers, fools, and jesters, and these and the patterns are featured in the design, again many with the masked faces. Comedy and tragedy happens in everyday life and also perfectly sums up our journey of this competition through the ups and downs. 

 Click here to see a video diary of these nails.

One of my favorite fashion eras is the Victorian period because of the ornate materials, textures and layers throughout most of the clothes that were worn so I was automatically drawn to this for my inspiration for this design. Coco Chanel was also born in this era and I can see a lot of inspiration from this period in her designs. My Vintage Couture design combines the contrasting romantic and feminine touches and dark side of the Victorian era and fashions. Akzentz sponsored this challenge and as a predominate L&P tech I wanted to challenge myself to use gel to create everything on my design, from the extensions to the pearls. The feminine element was represented by the dusky pink base and delicate lace patterns to exemplify the dark side. I was inspired by steampunk and made this more romantic by creating rustic old newspaper print in the shapes of butterflies. Many of the dresses in this period were styled with layers, underskirts, and ruffles. My design incorporates fun elements of different layers from the flower underskirt on the pinkie peeking out from under the ruffles of a black skirt to the hand-painted lace elements throughout the design. The ornate patterns of handheld fans, lace gloves, and umbrellas inspired me to use different versions of hand painted contrasting black and white lace throughout the design. Quilted ankle boots which were often worn under the layers of skirts inspired the quilted pattern on the thumb. I created the butterfly shaped middle finger by filing in the lace pattern and adorned it with pearls made from gel. This represented the beautiful gloves worn in this era. The 3-D gel butterfly was inspired by steampunk timepieces. It is detachable to symbolize the pocket watches famously sported by the gentleman of the era.

Click here to see a tutorial for these nails. 

I love the trippy, busy, and vibrant design created by CND for Libertine. There is so much going on in the design and like an optical illusion, when you look again, you see something different that seemed hidden before. This is what I wanted to capture in my nail design and the inspiration for my psychedelic trip nails. I was instantly drawn to the skulls and the emojis in the Libertine design, which is also portrayed throughout a lot of Libertine’s looks. I created my emoji skulls of punk couture queen Madonna and punk rocker Johnny Rotten while using emojis as pills popping out from the optical illusion black-hole. I added textures and layers from the Libertine look by using different illusions, feathers, and shapes. The Libertine look is all about letting your imagination run wild, and a psychedelic trip where anything is possible perfectly captured this, from using a psychedelic deer smoking a cigarette to the optical illusions throughout. While making the set wearable, I wanted to stay true to Libertine’s style of edgy, outrageous, and bold. I could see this look on the Libertine catwalk or recreated in salon. The shape I chose is one of the most popular salon shapes requested. Look at a nail, then look again — there will always be something different to look at that tricks your mind or eyes.  Take the blue bubble nail, for example: When you first look, it could be bubbles, when you look again, it could be a planet in outer space. Look at the psychedelic feather nail: If you look long enough, do the lines or feathers start to move?

As my nail design was so lively, I wanted to keep the finger art simple.  To ‘pin’ the punk couture look together, I made safety pin jeweler by bending safety pins into my desired shape and painting them with Vinylux. I chose not to top coat, to keep a matte finish. The rings were displayed in different places on the fingers.

Click here to see a video diary of Katie’s nails.