Miu Miu SS11

I don't like many fashion blogs (it's a very overcrowded place with too many people vying for attention) but I've long been a fan of Jak & Jil. I just love the interesting composition (straight up and down just doesn't do much for me these days I'm afraid) and the focus on the details. I'm all for the details.

This photo of Tamu is one of my faves. I'm just so in love with the colours of her outfit - especially those Miu Miu shoes! I've never been that much of a shoe person in all honestly but I love that bright pop of green and that black, almost lace-like detailing on the backs and toes. Here's another view of the same shoes in the nude colourway, although the detailing isn't too clear:

Not gonna lie - was totally lusting after these in the Selfridges sale

I've had that pic saved on my computer for months now and have been meaning to do nails inspired by them.. And now I finally have! Only it was really crap on all fingers apart from one so you'll just have to feast your eyes upon one finger (don't worry, it's my index finger):

What really impresses me about nail art - good nail art, I should add - is when it involves nice, clean lines. I lust after those lines! Clearly I need to practise with my pen (it's finally stopped oozing with black polish once I've removed that needle thing) to get them but I reckon this is quite a decent attempt. Once I've mastered the lines hopefully I'll be able to make patterns of the same size on each nail (!!!) and can give this look another try. At least my dotting skills seem okay!

Green: American Apparel Neon Green
Black: WAH Nails/Models Own black nail art pen

The polish arrived the other day so I was eager to try it out. It is rather bright although I wouldn't say it's as fluorescent as in the bottle. It applies quite nicely and I used three coats (as opposed to my usual magic number of two) to get even colour. I considered painting a layer of white before all the green to really make it pop but I couldn't be bothered as all my white has gone goopy (nice) but I reckon it would add some extra wow to the colour (if you're into your seriously acid greens).

Stella McCartney Spring/Summer 2011

It's been a while since I last did some fashion-focused nails. After the Antonio Berardi v-gaps I had some rather simple (by my standards) holographic polish on my nails which was perfect for those few bright sunny days we had in London last week.

Amazing value for money: GOSH, £4.99

In the time between v-gaps and present nails I also ordered a couple of bits and pieces off of eBay including some dotting tools and a set of 100 fimo canes - all of which came to the rather bargainous total of £5.97! I've been dying to get some fimo canes as they were part of my next "designer to-do nail"..

Like everyone else I've gone a bit loopy for fruits and fruit prints so this may be the first of a few fruity nails. The inspiration for these came from a dress in Stella McCartney's Spring/Summer 2011 collection and I'm just in love with this print:

So since I had oranges and lemons and limes in my fimo set, I decided to give it a go and then try out my dotting tools to do the leaves (still have not gotten around to getting a nail art pen set yet!) I really need to practice my fimo slicing skills as I think I cut them a bit too chunky... the result was pieces that stuck out by quite a bit and felt rather rough. That'll teach me for watching "Young Rich and Househunting" (awful programme on BBC 3 featuring snotty nosed rich kids who look 20 years older than their actual age) whilst doing my nails.

Overall, I don't think it's that bad an effect. It's not lasting a day on my nails due to those thick slices of not-so-yummy fimo but I rather like the abstractness of the design and the freshness of the colours.

White: NARS Ecume
Green: some green polish that came with my Gcocl kit (which I've had for nine years and still is fine!)

Mary Katrantzou SS11

When I first started to think of what prints I'd like to use on my nails for this blog I instantly thought of Mary Kantrantzou's amazing print dresses. I would seriously love to own one of these babies:

For my birthday I unfortunately didn't get the Serendipity dress but I did get some printer decal paper and some acrylic spray so that I could make my own nail decals!

I printed out a large version of Mary's Serendipity dress (thank you Net-A-Porter for providing hugeass images for me to use) onto my printer decal paper so I could then use sections of the dress on my nails. I did think about small versions of the dress on my nails but 1) I don't have a super amazing printer (although it has served me very well) and 2) I couldn't be bothered to try and resize them to fit my tinyass nails.

The whole thing was rather straightforward save for the part where you put the decal into water and leave it for x amount of time until the backing paper comes off. Being a bit of an idiot (I don't like to read instructions, I'm far too impatient to waste my time doing that!) it took me about four or five goes before I realised that around 15 seconds was enough time for the backing paper to come off and any longer meant the whole thing would just fall to pieces.

I also rather stupidly thought that it would be just like the water decals I used to get free with Mizz when I was 14. Nope. This (and I used the white kind fyi) was more like a sticker that you had to put in water to "activate" the stickiness. And ultimately that's what it was rather than what I would think of as a decal.

Yerp. So as you can see I thought it might be clear (I had no idea since my present giver had no idea either) and painted my nails white just in case. I think I'd quite like to try out the clear kind and see what difference it makes, if any. Also, since I had thought that the decals would be quite thin (like the kind free with Mizz), I thought I could just whack them on my nail and then use a cotton bud with nail polish remove to clean it all up. No such luck. I had to use nail clippers (no idea where my crappy nail scissors have vanished to) to try and curve the what-was-rectangular decal to a sort of nail shape and as you can see it resulted in a totally uncool "rough around the edges" look.

To finish I filed off the excess with a cheap emery board from Poundland in the same way that you would with a nail wrap.

Essentially this is my homemade version of some nail wraps only more fiddly and a lot more wet.

Worth the effort? I'm not quite sure yet... Whilst I love the idea of creating my own nail stickers with whatever images I want, ultimately I still think that I prefer polish. And honestly I can't see that changing any time soon.

Hussein Chalayan SS11

I love Hussein Chalayan. He's one of my favourite designers (along with Chanel, Marc Jacobs and Luella). Lately I've been craving nude nails, nothing too wacky, something a bit more sophisticated. Maybe it's because I'm about to turn a whole year older but quite simple nails were called for.

I had a browse around net-a-porter for some nail inspiration and hit upon gold. This was after I had attempted to do some Jonathan Saunders nails pretty much in the dark (thank you, dodgy wiring) and they had, of course, come out all shades of horrible. I was definitely ready for simple!

When I spotted this dress instantly knew I had the right colours sitting on my shelf; Revlon Gray Suede and Revlon Passion Fruit (it's scented too). Unfortunately I was having a severe case of impatient-itus and ruined my nails all over again. I took my time after that and painted the colours with a day inbetween to seriously dry so after a few days this was the result:

I'm quite happy with this although I'm super tempted to whack something sparkly on... If I had uber long nails (never going to happen since I wear contacts and quite like having eyes despite them not being quite so good as they used to be) I'd have done a Louboutin-esque manicure with the pink on the inside and nude on the outside. A bit more peekabo like the dress but nevermind, I'm sure more people can appreciate the pretty colours better this way!

(Have to say that Passion Fruit smells so yummy! It reminds me of a packet of Skittles which is really making me hungry...)

Oh, by the way it's my birthday on May 19th so if you'd like to buy me the matching dress it's only £930 from net-a-porter.

Vogue Nippon Loewe Nail Stickers

One of my favourite moments of SS11 were the nails that Sophy Robson created for Loewe:

So when I heard that Vogue Nippon's April issue had some Loewe nail stickers free inside I rushed down to nearest newsagents asap! Unfortunately the mag was £16 and I couldn't justify the pricetag for a mag I couldn't even read (and those glorious nail stickers). So plan b: I gave my aunt a call in Taiwan and within ten days had received the lovely nail stickers in the post:

Purty purty!

I was a bit surprise to find it's an actual sticker and by that I mean it's a gigantic sticky block. I was kind of expecting some sort of rub-on transfer or stickers the size of nails (a bit like Sally Hansen or Nail Rock) but nope, it's a gigantic sticker. Besides the fact that I'm too lazy to cut it to size I'm also a little anal when it comes to stickers. When I was younger I used to collect stickers (and still do with seventeen days to go until my twenty-third birthday..) but am still very reluctant to actually use them. The butterflies at the top are individual stickers so I may use those at some point but I just hate the idea of breaking it up!

I'll let you know if I get over my anal-ness or manage to get my hands on some more...

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 v3.0

Not totally sure how I feel about these nails. I bought a yellow nail art pen from a shop in Chinatown and it was shit. Really hard to use. This would probably look better on longer nails.

Base: Butter London "Pearly Queen"
Black bands: WAH Nails Model's Own nail art pen
Yellow triangles: shitty cheap pen from Chinatown

I'd like to say that you get what you pay for but today I discovered that the brush on my WAH Nails Model's Own white nail pen had somehow broken off whilst it's been sitting on my shelf so...

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 v2.0

I did these nails after three attempts at doing some more runway nails. I couldn't do any of the previous prints any justice on my nails and was getting increasingly frustrated when I thought I'd do this as it's relatively simple.

I used Butter London's "Pearly Queen" as the base colour, then layered on dots with the end of a hair pin (works quite well if you don't have any tools like me!) The black and white were Barry M and the red was OPI's "Monsooner or Later". Easy peasy.

These nails were actually retweeted by Marc Jacobs and Sophy Robson (my nail idol)!

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 Simone nails

So this is the story of how this blog came about.

I was on bored, looking at the new Marc by Marc Jacobs collection and loved the colours of this Simone dress. Then I looked at the nail polishes on my shelf. I had pretty much the exact same colours just sitting there so I figured I'd give it a go. And from there it's kinda grown. I love prints, I love fashion (obviously, I have a degree in it) and I'm hopelessly head over heels in love with nail art. So here we are.

White: Barry M
Yellow : OPI "The It Colour"
Greige: Deborah Lippmann "Waking Up in Vegas"
Blue: Andrea Fulerton "Gloria" nail art brush
Red: OPI "Monsooner or Later"

Sophy Robson's Giles Nails

I had a go at doing Sophy Robson's Giles' nails (with different colours) a while ago. They were super easy - no special tools needed - and got me lot of attention! They were even a hit with boys!