Jin Soon Choi’s Nail Art Belongs in a Museum

The pursuit of beauty is rarely convenient or practical— a point driven home rather sharply by the nails in this story. Inspired by a recent museum crawl in Paris that included the Grand Palais, the Pinault Collection, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the Musée Picasso, the New York–based manicurist and beauty entrepreneur Jin Soon Choi used gel, polish, acrylic, and wire to painstakingly create finger-size masterpieces more suited to a gallery exhibition than, say, to cooking, gardening, playing tennis, or anything, well, hands-on.

“I’m used to fashion and luxury,” says Choi, who started out in clothing design and marketing in Seoul before moving to New York City in 1991. “I followed many fellow South Koreans into the nail industry because I didn’t speak English. But once I started working, I realized fingernails could be a true creative outlet and an important part of fashion storytelling.” She became a longtime collaborator of the photographer Steven Meisel and is now sought after by clients such as Zoë Kravitz, Miley Cyrus, and Misty Copeland.

Here, Choi channeled several artists she admires to create sculptural talons with a twist. One model’s handful of tiny bananas evokes a famous Andy Warhol canvas; the pastel pink and blue acrylic flowers on another’s fingertips are reminiscent of a well-known Jeff Koons piece. One of her favorite looks, inspired by the glass artist Dale Chihuly, took Choi and four assistants three days to complete. She used clay gel to hand-shape the individual pieces, then cured them to hold the form; colored the pieces using vivid jelly shades to create a translucent glass effect; and finished everything with a topcoat for extra shine and clarity. “Chihuly’s works have so much movement, color, and dimension,” says Choi. “I’m a modern and contemporary art lover, and for this shoot I didn’t want to do anything typical.” Trust us—we get it.