Manicures have been whispering messages about the wearer’s position in society for as long as they have existed, according to fashion journalist Suzanne E. Shapiro.<\/p>\n
“Women’s bodies – and sense of self-presentation – have always held huge political and cultural significance,” Shapiro, who wrote Nails: The Story of The Modern Manicure, tells the BBC.<\/p>\n
Even back in 13th century Imperial China, the lengthy talons grown by nobility and the delicately carved brass nail shields which usually guarded them were a symbol of a life unmarred by manual labour.<\/p>\n
A single layer of the rose-tinted waxy salves which were popular in the 1800s was a sign of vigour and health, but two layers – in an era when cosmetics and artificial beauty were tied to virtue – was the mark of a vain or “loose” woman.<\/p>\n
And the red at-home nail lacquer, released by Revlon in the early 1930s, was a badge of honour for modern women rebelling against that kind of oppressive judgement.<\/p>\n
But it was women of colour who really made manicures an accessible and fashionable form of self-expression, historians say.<\/p>\n
Entertainer Josephine Baker, disco icons Dianna Ross and Donna Summer, and Olympic gold-medal-winning sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner – whose dramatic acrylic sets often distracted headline writers from her record-setting performances – have all pioneered nail art.<\/p>\n
“These were times that it was hard for black women to be able to express themselves,” says celebrity nail artist Celeste Hampton.<\/p>\n
“[Nail art] allowed black women to express our form of softness, our form of femininity, our form of beauty.”<\/p>\n
And when waves of Vietnamese refugees gave rise to the nail bar in the 1970s, professional manicures were no longer the preserve of the rich.<\/p>\n
But, like many luxuries, as they became more popular and more accessible to the masses, the wealthy began pivoting \u2013 a textbook example of behaviour known as “counter signalling”, Rudolfo says.<\/p>\n
“The same way that logo bags are considered gauche or quiet luxury is more aspirational, bare nails are considered the trend now.<\/p>\n
“The examples are almost always white women or celebrities… [and] they’ll often conflate class and taste with that bareness.”<\/p>\n
Others point out bare nails often demand their own time-consuming and costly routine.<\/p>\n
“The irony in all this is these natural nails are not natural either,” Shapiro says. “They also require a lot of grooming and sometimes pretty premiere services.”<\/p>\n
Few would argue there aren’t valid feminist questions for the beauty industry to answer, around unrealistic standards for example, but the largely female-run nail sector also feels empowering for many women.<\/p>\n
“I feel like nail care has very much had a ‘for women, by women’ sort of ethos around it,” Shapiro says. “The first salon opened in New York City was owned by a woman, and she was a remarkably independent one… a lot of the first entrepreneurs offering product lines, opening salons were women.”<\/p>\n
Hampton admits she’s saddened by the way trends have been \u2013 and continue to be – weaponised.<\/p>\n
“We’re taking the fun out of nails… Anyone should be able to wear what they like – nail polish or bare nails,” she says.<\/p>\n
“Why is there an argument? Why is there beef?”<\/p>\n
Scanlon too is a little baffled.<\/p>\n
“For me, it’s like just stop judging ourselves and everybody else… Some people like to have the nails done, some people don’t,” she says.<\/p>\n
“I suppose the question that I was posing was, is it doing anything for you?<\/p>\n
“The truth of it is: it’s not that deep.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manicures have been whispering messages about the wearer’s position in society for as long as they have existed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}