The Emperor’s New Nail Polish

Now I am beginning to understand the meaning of ‘victim’ in fashion victim.

Yesterday’s NYT Thursday Styles section, aside from promoting a Pee Wee Herman-style suit as the next men’s fashion craze, announced that chipped nail polish is now chic!

This is the epitome of the fashion lemmings. A true sociological study on how women will do anything if we are told by the fashionistas that it is ‘in style’. A few of my favorite quotes from this article:

“PITY the mothers and grandmothers. Visible bra straps, glaringly obvious roots — these are but a few of the grooming no-nos that have become yes-yeses in recent years.” (scary opening)

“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.”

Well this a a great relief to me. Keeping with the theme of having no time to cry I certainly am not great about the nail appointment. Could this be the tipping point in fashion history where neglect due to over-scheduled lives drives what is acceptable, or better yet, fashionable?

Now I am cool, right? Oh no, no, no my friends. Read on…

“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.)”

You are friggin kidding, right? First, if you are insane enough to spend $5,000 on a handbag (no offense to my friends that do) I would say you are using the same judgement in going for the chipped nails. 

This one, of course, is my fave:

“I don’t think you can get away with it if you’re a woman of a certain age,” she said. What’s a certain age? “Anybody over 35,” she replied.”

All I can say to that is “kill me now, already”. 

I leave you with this thought. What if next month they tell us that toilet paper on your shoe is the height of fashion… but only if you are wearing a pair of Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin or Manolo Blahnik.

You girls wearing Nine West… you just have simply left the bathroom in shameful ignorance!

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