According to The New York Times, chipped and peeling nail polish is ultra hot right now. No, really. It's supposed to signify that you're too busy to get manicures every week and/or that you spend so much time on your Blackberry that your manicures last about ten minutes.
Over the last few years -- since the era of the skull print scarf, let's say, or the (metaphorical) rise of the Olsen twins -- having streaked, chipped or just plain grotty nail polish no longer suggests drug addiction, manual labor or pure laziness. Like untied high-tops, thread-worn jeans and bedhead, it's now part of a deliberate look.
And chipped polish is not sported solely by nail-biting school students and downtown punkers. It has been spotted uptown, in professional settings and gala parties, behind department store sales counters and even (gasp!) on beauty and fashion industry insiders.
Anyone can get caught between manicures. But now women no longer have to sit on their hands when they do.
"Before, when nail polish was chipped you absolutely had to run and get it fixed," said Ji Baek, the owner of Rescue Beauty Lounge and a manicure doyenne who has noticed the Olsens and Lindsay Lohan with less-than-impeccable polish. Now, clients like hers are "wearing perfectly-tailored clothes, they have $5,000 bags and equally fabulous shoes, but their nails are chipped and they're saying, 'I don't care.' They don't want to be too perfect."
But, she noted, their polish "is so perfectly chipped."
Being otherwise exquisitely turned out may be the key to making the undone-nails look work. ("Chipping is cool, but chipping in a schleppy way when you don't have a $5,000 handbag is not as cool," Ms. Baek said.)
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"A girl with skinny jeans and a great bag looks like she did it on purpose," said Deborah Lippman, a manicurist who has worked on the hands of Gwyneth Paltrow, Mary J. Blige and Madonna. "Those damn skinny girls can get away with murder."
Ah, the rules just became clearer. If you are super skinny and carry a $5,000 handbag, chipped nails are hot. Otherwise, they're not. And they need to be "perfectly chipped." Glad we cleared that up. In any event, we heartily endorse this trend....but only on days when our manicure is feeling a bit run-down.
