Chipped Nail Polish And Other Reasons I Hate Fashion

A confession: I wear chipped nail polish. Currently, my nails are a bruise-y shade of peacock blue, with one chip on my left-hand index finger. I painted them myself last night. Tomorrow, there will be more chips and by end-of-day Saturday, they will look like several gerbils spent the afternoon nibbling on my nails. Some time next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday, I will get fed up, self-remove the polish, and start all over again, probably with a color on the exact opposite side of the spectrum. Perhaps an orange-y pink. You never know.

I do not, however, paint my nails to have them chip, nor do I aid nature in the process. I don't bite my nails, I don't pick at them. I can barely manage to push my cuticles back when I paint them, let alone pay the art of chipping more attention than the art of painting.

All of this is a long way of saying that the fashion industry is absolutely absurd.

Today's New York Times Styles Section has a two-page article two pages too long on the new trend of "chipped nail polish."

Now there is another stylistic tic that would have been unthinkable on a proper lady in your Aunt Beatrice's day. 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.

I am embarrassed for any and all women out there who go out of their way to purposely chip their nail polish (while simultaneously, I'm sure, juggling a Goyard bag and absurdly expensive and absurdly high heels). Do they not realize that there is something so gratingly insecure, so cloyingly pathetic about the strategic determination to look "un-done"?

I'm going to assume that I don't need to explain the sheer contradiction of it all.

Purposely chipped nail polish falls into the same category as bangs that are clearly too long and clearly annoying (a dead giveaway is when the person is constantly blinking and/or fiddling at their fringe), and yet worn anyway, because it looks "cool" and "rocker-chic". [See also: freshly washed "bed-head" and newly-dyed roots - a la Madonna.]

Ah, but apparently this manicurial affectation is not a sign of laziness and a decided inability to afford weekly (or any) manicures, but instead a sign of "professional fabulousness."

The article continues with: "'It's not easy on your nails when you're BlackBerrying all the time,' Ms. Diamond said." No, she's right. It's not! The keys are just so small and message far too important. But wait! There's more:

Sending the message that your life is much too complex, darling, to bother with maintaining a manicure is exactly the point, said Michelle Markowitz, an aspiring actress sporting artfully eroded blood-red nails.

"When I get my nails done, I like how it looks," she said. But she also likes less-than-perfect nails "because it shows you don't really care."

It shows you don't really care. Does it, Ms. Markowitz? But does not your admission of awareness not show exactly how much you do, in fact, care?

And here (finally) is my point: I don't care about chipped nail polish, and I don't care who wears it. I do, however, care when the fashion industry decides out of sheer desperation and lack of inspiration that it's own tail would be a tasty treat. Just because an Olsen does it, or because a Lower East Side hipster DJ wears it does not make it an aspirational trend.

The fashion industry seems to have gone so meta that they are now embracing parodies of themselves. Does no one remember Zoolander and Derelicte? Come on people, just because New York City has a lot of homeless people does not mean you should start dressing like them! Oh, wait. Too late.

Fashion is a farce because fashion should involve some aspect of personality. If you care about what you wear, what you wear should be showing who you are, not showing how you wish to be seen. My nails are chipped because I actually, really and truly, Do. Not. Care. I rarely wash my hair and the last time I had a pedicure was, well, so long ago I don't remember.

But I do care that my under-eye circles are covered up, that my mascara is expertly and perfectly applied, and that my cheeks remain forever and unerringly artificially rosy. And if the other Olsen and Anna Wintour get bored over a non-existent lunch and decide that pimples are the new beauty marks and that bags are a sign of "professional fabulousness," well, I can promise you that I will not, ever, leave mine uncovered.

Because I care about people seeing a pimple on my face and I don't like to look tired. And while my nails may be chipped and my hair maybe dirty, I can promise you that I never look in the mirror and think that looks "cool." I do, however, look in the mirror and think, "That looks like me."

Comments

[JUSTME]

You had me until the dirty hair part. I HATE dirty hair. Not only do I hate dirty hair, there is an entire genre of movies that I will not watch because the charcaters in them have dirty hair--you know the ones, period pieces that go out of their way to be authentic and, therefore, have characters bouncing around in stringy, oily hair.

The nail thing? Who cares. My toes are beautifully red at the moment and my fingernails are well manicured, but splotched with all shades of acrylic paint that have adhered to my clear nail polish. Here in Atlanta, as in many other parts of the United States, Vietnamese immigrants have actually made it possible for middle-class working women to indulge in the luxury of regular manicures/pedicures. I must say, I love having the luxury available to me, but I feel guilty about having such intimate acts of grooming done for me by other people. Nor do I understand how anyone could bring themselves to have a total stranger groom their pubic regions. That is the height of narcissism to me and totally unthinkable.

Can I go back to bashing Hillary now?

[Wilburrr]

3 strokes.... first down the middle, then one on each side. Don't paint.

[SuburbanKamikaze]

I don't like to brag, but my friends and I on the mommy track were sporting sloppy manicures long before they showed up in the Style section. Will fashion-savvy women soon be heading to the salon to have an inch of gray roots added to their coiffures as well?

Visible bra straps? Puh-leeze. We invented the look, which, when paired with visible milk leakage and grape jelly smears, practically screams "mommy's got it going on..."

SK

[slank]

My mother who is now 87, used to be an Emergency Room nurse and always told me chipped nail polish, dirty underwear. It was an observation she made after many years in E.R. and she wanted to be sure I took something away from that. I never wear dirty underwear but have often had chipped nail polish so I guess the lesson was somewhat learned.

[gailmforrest]

RIght on! I have chipped nails because of the affordability factor of keeping them perpetually unchipped. I refuse to spend my 401K on manicures and yes, I try to do it myself but then I have polish on my fingers. That will probably never be "fabulous". As for unwashed hair, I am a big fan and again it's not for fahsion's sake but time and energy; too tired at 11:30 p.m. to hold the hairdryer.

[mlaiuppa]

Chipped nail polish.

Dark roots.

Bed hair.

Fashion being another name for lazy?

[theidaexpress]

I am embarrassed for women who spend loads of money each week on their nails! I especially hate the type who get little decorations put on them--like tiny american flags for the 4th of july. Ick!
http://www.theidaexpress.com

[professor]

Most women spend their entire lives concerned with nothing, nothing but fashion. May we criticize them now? Probably not.

Colleges have fashion departments.. Next: a Vacuuming / Hamburger Helper Department.

Somewhere someone is laughing: "Look what we've got them doing now!!!!"

The trouble is that people believe "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "there's no accounting for taste" and "chacun a son gout" and other such convenient avoidance of the truth. Thus, they think people look attractive in big huge baggy shorts, despite the evidence of their eyes. Pretty soon, the people actually start to SEE the emperor's new clothes, and they look right smart, yesirree.

[rini]

I like the long bangs look, and understand the roots thing. Dirty hair??no. Chipped nail polish? no no no.

BTW - chipped nail polish can harbor bacteria on the uneven surfaces. Health care workers cannot wear chipped polish.