The Hippest of Hands: All About the White Manicure

Backstage at New York Fashion Week for Spring 2015, an interesting trend emerged: The White Manicure. Clean and neat and decidedly different than darks, white nail polish is making a comeback and looks great on any skin tone, nail length, and nail shape.

I personally love the look of opaque white nail polish tidily swept, simply, onto long, almond-shaped nails, above, as well as on the more dramatic stiletto manicure, sans any additional embellishment. Know that you can wear this look and remain perfectly on-trend. It’s clean and modern and luxe. However, here are some adaptations of the Great White, straight from the runways of New York Fashion Week……

Above, the model compliments her white eyeliner with a matching mani, although the slight derivation here on the nail here is merely a darker tip. You are going to be seeing this look a lot–the white eyeliner and matching mani will infiltrate fashion with powerful and enduring force.

If you have the patience for nail art–and I don’t–then here are some additional adaptations to play with. This sparse white mani is a fresh take on the natural nail and on white polish. Beautiful.

A silver French mani takes white to new height! Holly Falcone created it for the Alon Livne show.

With a look that is reminiscent of linen, this textured white mani was created by Rita Remark for Essie at Wes Gordon’s collection.

A single natural stripe down the center of the nail is left unpainted at Nonoo.

Prabal Gurung implemented a similar tactic.

At Kate Spade New York, models wore a blunt white mani with a single black strip.

Capitalizing on fashion’s new blue trend, this blue and white mani was designed by Ann Yee and created by Inni for Ann Yee.

I love the uniqueness of this mani for Kye’s spring 2015 collection. Bold, graphic, avant garde.

Great White Sightings…..

Aubrey Plaza wears a similarly graphic black and white mani on the cover of Nylon magazine…..a publication which clearly is a fan of the white mani!

Here, Alexa Chung models it with black graph lines…..

And Leighton Meester does the white mani straight up…..

…..as does Rihanna, looking haute for Elle…..

…..and Tyra, seeming as equally as urban.

J. Lo wears her stiletto nails white as snow, no doubt to match her pure white Cavalli couture.

Kylie Jenner likes them long, long, long…..

…..but Cara Delevingne keeps it short and sweet…..

…..just like Kim.

White nails look appropriate on executive women, above, and are spot-on for all-white fashions. They also work with couture, below…..

…..avant garde styling…..

…..as well as Boho chic! Could one nail varnish be any more versatile?

Oh, and don’t forget your toes. Wear a white pedi on the beach with foot jewelry.

Nonoo made matchy with fingers and toes at their spring 2015 show, below. See how great white polish looks with a tan??? Fresh and current.

And finally, as a quick aside, if you’re like me, and the thought of nail art is either just a little too cheesy, or simply mind-numbingly tiresome–or both!–check out the fingernail armor by my friend and jeweler, Marianna Harutunian, as shown here on a white mani on Scandinavian star Laleh in her video “Colors,” styled and directed by Bea Åkerlund. Hot! Just a tad more sophisticated than nail art, don’t you think?

For the hippest of hands (and feet!), buy a bottle of white and let your imagination run wild…..It looks great on everyone, and in any which way you choose. Worn with the new white eyeliner trend, the look is quite striking indeed.