Nails are the canvas for her mind-boggling creations (2025)

NEW YORK – For at least a few days most weeks, Mei Kawajiri makes hotel calls to celebrities such as rapper Cardi B, supermodel Heidi Klum and singer Ariana Grande to whip up viral creations, often posted online for her more than 343,000 Instagram followers.

Her medium might be even more impressive: extravagant nail art – minutely detailed 3D pastries, hand-drawn portraits of anime heroines and 15cm acrylics embedded with jewels and bits of lace.

When she is not collaborating with celebrities, Kawajiri works out of her combined home and office in the Lower East Side, her nail equipment tucked in a corner across from her toddler’s playpen, toys strewn across foam and carpeted mats.

It has been a long journey for Kawajiri. After a childhood spent in Kyoto, Japan, opened her own studio in Harajuku, a stylish neighbourhood in Tokyo, at 23.

In 2012, she came to New York on the advice of a client’s American friend, who said her work deserved to be on magazine covers.

She arrived in New York alone, speaking no English. She would walk the almost 6.5km stretch from the Lower East Side to the Plaza Hotel in Fifth Avenue with a portfolio of her designs.

“I would ask people, ‘Do you think I should move to New York?’” said Kawajiri, who declined to give her age, but whose short stature, blunt bangs, hot pink Miu Miu hair clips and bunny slippers epitomise the kawaii aesthetic, which emphasises bright colours and cuteness.

Encouraged by the response (“I quickly learnt what ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’ meant”), she obtained an artist visa at a time when it was tough to convince people that doing nails should be considered art, she said.

After working for a few months at a SoHo nail salon, she decided to strike out on her own to do more creative work. She initially charged US$100 for two-hour sessions, working out of a suitcase and doing as many as six house calls a day.

Now, 13 years later, she creates custom nail art for A-list clients for events such as the Met Gala and Academy Awards, and has worked with some of the biggest brands in fashion, including Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs. She declined to disclose her rates.

Her schedule includes a mix of hotel visits to stars, photo shoots for brands, runway shows and appointments with regular New Yorkers, though scoring one of those requires a referral from an existing client.

She finds inspiration in the everyday. She created 3D croissant nails when she first moved to New York City because she struggled to pronounce the word, and it was easier to point at her nails when ordering at a cafe. She now changes up her nails about every 10 days.

During a recent interview, she wore a full 10 fingers of 3D art – a hot dog on one nail, an apple on another because, she said, her daughter Itsuki is obsessed with apples and stops crying when she sees her mother’s finger.

“My life is my inspiration for my nails,” said Kawajiri, whose recent creations include 3D dirty socks and baby bottles.

She also creates elaborate hand-drawn nails of characters from the anime world, using a brush with a tip as thin as a strand of hair. Unlike most manicurists, she does not use stickers or stencils.

When designing for others, her process, whether for 3D or hand-drawn creations, is a collaborative one. She asks clients for their preferences at the beginning of each appointment, which takes between two and 2½ hours: a particular length, shape, colour or sharpness of nail tip, for instance.

After the usual steps one would get in a manicure, she applies a base coat, followed by gel colour polish – the South Korea-made Gel Monsta brand is a favourite – placing the nails under an LED lamp between each coat to harden and solidify the polish.

Then it is on to creating the 3D shapes, which she sculpts with her fingers and various tools from 3D clay gel, which has a gummy texture. She then attaches her creations with gel before placing them under the LED lamp to harden them, a process known as curing.

“Gel takes 3D to the next level because I can cure at any moment and create more dynamic shapes,” she said.

The job can quickly become rote if, say, five consecutive clients want replicas of the 3D Sesame Street nails they saw on her Instagram earlier that week. But she does not mind the repetition too much, she said – as long as the final product makes her clients feel confident.

“Nails are such a powerful form of expression,” she said. NYTIMES

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