UCLA
Center for East Asian Studies
Japanese Youth and Popular Culture
September 18, 1999
ASIA-PACIFIC || Japanese Youth Culture || News File Index
Nail art salons add glitter to Japanese fashion
By Naoko Nakamae in TokyoAki, an 18-year-old Japanese girl shopping in Harajuku, a trendy teenage hangout in Tokyo, epitomises teenage fashion de jour with her dark tan, bleached hair and two-inch light green nails which sparkle with silver glitter.
But Aki's nails are "very simple", she says, because she paints them herself. For the more adventurous, nail salons across Tokyo are now marketing "nail art" and "nail sculptures", where manicurists paint intricate designs on natural or fake nails. Nail art, which can incorporate decorations such as glitter and gems, costs anything from Y2,000 ($ 19) for simple designs to over Y15,000 for complicated ones.
"Nail art started becoming popular about five years ago, but these last couple of years it has really been booming. Materials used to be very expensive, but now that costs are falling nail art has become more affordable. And nail art schools are also increasing - which has led to more nail salons," says Mayuri Tanaka, president of Nail Art Museum, "Periwinkle", in Harajuku.
And a broad range of women are qualifying to become nail artists. "There are teenagers, and a lot of women in their 20s and 30s, some of whom have quit their jobs to become nail artists," says one nail school graduate.
But with nail salons sprouting up all over Japan, many are finding that they have to diversify their businesses to cope with the intensifying competition. Eyelash perms - which make eyelashes curl up "just like western women", says Ms Tanaka, are particularly popular, especially since teenagers who are prohibited by their schools from painting their nails face no such restriction on curling eyelashes.
Nail salons have also diversified by combining the nail art trend with a boom in mobile phones. Keitai (mobile) art customises mobile phones by painting nail varnish designs on the backs of mobile phones for Y2,000-Y12,000.
"It's becoming popular," says a shop attendant at Roco Nails, a small nail salon in a fashionable shopping centre. "We get at least one request a day. It's not just for women either. We get at least two or three male customers a week."
Meanwhile, one of the downsides of the trend is that two or three inch nails can inhibit certain activities within everyday life.
One particular thing which is almost impossible to do is dealing with ring-pull openers on soft drink cans.
In the past most girls surmounted this difficulty by relying on parents, classmates and boyfriends. But now retailers, cottoning on to the trend, have come up with a small portable gadget specifically designed to help these women open cans.
Copyright 1999 The Financial Times Limited
