Varnish Vixen

It's that time of year...A/W 2013/14 Runway is here. For the next few weeks I will be recreating runway manicures, and creating designs inspired by the fashions walking down the catwalks at NYFW and LFW. This look was inspired by the Michael Kors collection. His show featured bold colors like orange, cobalt, and yellow color blocked in contrast to the significant amount of black shown on his runway. Leather, mink, houndstooth and camouflage took on a modern appeal and definitely made a statement at NYFW. Michael Kors described his show best when he said:

“BRIGHT LIGHTS, FAST CITY… URBAN ATHLETICISM MEETS UPTOWN POLISH… AN ATTITUDE BASED ON SPEED, ENDURANCE AND GLAMOUR…ELECTRIC COLORS FROM NEON ORANGE, TAXICAB YELLOW AND ROYAL JUXTAPOSED WITH BLACK, WHITE, OLIVE AND CHARCOAL…A LUXE TAKE ON CAMO AND GRAPHIC DOGSTOOTH CHECK… HEAT-SEALED CLOSURES, MOTO TAILORING, PERFORATION AND QUILTING EQUAL HIGH PERFORMANCE CHIC…GLEAMING METALLIC ACCENTS ON SLEEK STRUCTURED BAGS, STREAMLINED PUMPS AND BOLD BELTS…THE OVERSIZED GOGGLE…THE GLOVED HAND… URBANE SPORTIF…”

To best translate the look of Michael Kors' show, I decided to emulate the cobalt, grey, black and white camo print shown in both a pant suit and a stunning mink coat. Because the camo is a little loud, especially in my choice color palette, I wanted to break it up by doing an all black nail on my ring finger. This also helped to tie in the use of shiny black leather and patent from the runway show with the camo print I had planned on each nail.

For this look, I started with butter LONDON's Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat. I decided to use white as my base color for the nails with the camo print so the other colors would show up well. I painted two coats of O.P.I.'s Alpine Snow on all but the ring finger. Next, using butter LONDON's Union Jack Black, I painted the ring finger and added my first round of camo print on all the white nails. While this initially looked like cow print, I had faith it would turn out alright.

The closest shade of polish I had to the grey in Michael Kors' line was butter LONDON's Chimney Sweep. It was a bit darker and slightly more glittery, than I would have liked, but it made an effective second camo coat. Lastly, using Essie's Mesmerize I painted the third coat of camo print on each of the nails to capture the striking cobalt of Michael Kors' design.

As a finishing touch, I really wanted to make the black on the ring finger and in the camo print stand out, as to imitate the leather/patent on the runway. I decided to paint all the camo print nails with my matte topcoat, Essie's Matte About You. Next I painted the ring finger with one coat of my ultra shiny SV Topcoat. Then on the camo print, I carefully painted over the black parts of the camo using a skinny brush and SV Topcoat. This way, the black popped on the print and tied into the patent/leather ring finger.