Harry Styles, Tyler, The Creator and Machine Gun Kelly confirm the men’s nail polish trend
While fashion is becoming more and more unisex, beauty is also opening up more and more with men who dare to monopolize products that have long remained the preserve of women. Latest trend to emerge? The nail polish for boys, adopted by fashion-forward artists such as Harry Styles, Tyler, The Creator and Machine Gun Kelly who have all launched a line of trendy nail lacquers. Explanations.
There were several warning signs . In 2020, Chanel extended its Boy men’s makeup line with black and white polishes for boys. Then it was Lil Nas X , Marc Jacobs, Post Malone, A$AP Rocky, Bad Bunny and Pete Davidson – the new Mr. Kim Kardashian – who we spotted wearing hairspray or fun nail art on their fingertips. Then the launches, last November and December, of three nail polish lines by Harry Styles , Tyler, The Creator and Machine Gun Kelly confirmed the situation: hand make-up is no longer the prerogative of women.
Harry Styles has released under the name Pleasing a collection of vegan and non-binary nail polishes with luminescent colors and poetic packaging. Rapper Tyler, The Creator offers nail polishes in pastel shades and original designs within his lifestyle brand Golf Le Fleur. Adorned with drawings of angels, the containers close with pretty daisy-shaped caps to better match the name of the label and the whims of the artist in the offbeat universe. For the pop-punk-looking singer Machine Gun Kelly, whose nail polish brand is called UN/DN LAQR, the aesthetic is much more rock and minimalist, but just as desirable. The 31-year-old, who has a habit of matching his manicure to that of his girlfriend, Megan Fox, imagined vibrant shades with evocative names such as “Bad Tendancies”.
However, this is not the first time in the history of pop culture that this gender fluid and punk beauty bias has broken conventions . Many rock stars like David Bowie or Lou Reed in the 70s had dared to paint their nails, just as they like to borrow clothes from the women’s wardrobe. We then saw actor Johnny Depp in the 90s take the plunge, most often opting for the color black to perfect his dark and wild image of a Tim Burton hero.
We can also add to this list Kurt Cobain , Jared Leto , Jason Momoa, Brad Pitt , Seal, Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Kid Cudi or the late Virgil Abloh . All were seen nails adorned with bright colors or decorated with designs. What do all these personalities have in common? A desire to break free from gender codes and deconstruct masculinity to make it less toxic and much sexier. And good news, nail polish for men is no longer reserved for the stage or catwalks. More and more boys are daring to have a manicure in a club or on the street. As an Instagram saying goes, ” Life is too short to have bare fingernails.”
