Behind-the-scenes at Fashion Week: Halpern AW20

Marian Newman reveals the nail tales & styles for Halpern’s autumn/winter 2020 Fashion Week showcase…

The nail team: Jennie Nippard, Charli Jepson, Nic Hills, Rachel Furr, Amy Oldale, Kristine Toce

The brief for Halpern came a week before the show with a mood board from the stylist, Patti Wilson, and a nail shape that Michael (Halpern) liked, which was a long tapered coffin style. He didn’t know it was called ‘coffin’ until I told him at the show. He loved the name as his style is a bit ‘dark’!

I made some suggestions and sent pictures of my ideas, of which there were a few that the Halpern team liked. They then wanted to see a matte version. Fast forward to the beauty test with Kristine Toce, hair by Sam McKnight and make-up with Isamaya Ffrench.

There was to be a very specific blue, so Sweet Squared sent me all the relevant blues in both Vinylux and Shellac (as gel polish is fine to use on pre-prepared tips). There was also black, both with a variety of designs that involved different colours of glitter and foil from Lecenté.

I had made an ombré look inspired by a specific fabric which they loved. So, it was decided to have three ’special’ designs that matched three looks: the ombré I had made, a raffia dress that I made at the test and a ‘big’ outfit that had a matte grey base with lots of colours and flowers.

Kristine suggested that she try a hand painted 3D flower to match and I suggested that this be just for one finger per hand and a supporting design that was in line with another general design. This was a matte grey base with multi-coloured hints of foil. These were approved.

The other nails that were approved were a solid matte blue (Jiggy), matte Jiggy with an ‘external cuff’ of gold glitter, Black Pool with pink glitter and Black Pool with multi-colour hints of foil.

The inspiration ended up as: three outfits perfectly accessorised by special designs. The collection is very bright and shiny with a lot of detail.

The nails shouldn’t ‘fight’ the collection, but rather support and contrast while bringing out specific colours in the multitude of fabulous fabrics. Hence the matte finish and colour details.

I called the glitters an ‘external cuff’ as we have seen cuffs many times before, but they always appear to be under the main colour, so therefore internal. The glitter was made to look a bit 3D and more like crystals (by making it thicker than usual) therefore the ‘external cuff’ was born.

CND colours used: Cream Puff, Jellied, Sugarcane, Black Pool & Tutti Fruitti available in the UK via Sweet Squared.

Kristine Toce by Olka Fuller Photography

Kristine Toce reveals the creation of her feature flower nail for Halpern…

I added white CND Shellac in Cream Puff to Mystic Slate, so the nail colour was identical to the dress colour. I also added some Lecenté Silver Chrome to create the sheen.

The main flower base colour is CND Shellac in Vagabond, and for the flower shadows I used Wildfire and Pink Bikini mixed with base coat, to create a translucent finish.

CND Shellac in Black Pool was used for drawing the outlines. Matt Top Coat and Creative Play Top Coats were used to creating 3D effects and different finishes.