The erogenous zone of fashion has moved right to the tips of our fingers, literally. Without question, the biggest beauty trend of 2010 has been the attention given to nails. While we’ve always enjoyed a bit of a manicure, the ten little nails at the end of our hands have become canvases for so much more!

Perhaps we can blame Sharmadean Reid, London it-girl, sportswear editor at Arena Homme Plus, consultant at Nike and publisher of WAH magazine who founded WAH nails a year ago. Based in grimey Dalston, East London’s edgy enclave, WAH is a nail art bar and gallery, which has single handedly re-invented nail art to be ironically cool.

She maintains, “It was always trendy to me and my friends. You can go into a ghetto nail shop and if you try hard you can communicate a good design to them- I got them to do a Dior double French before with great difficulty- but at WAH nails, good designs are the norm and we can all speak English. We also tap into nail trends or cool motifs like anchors and eyeballs. The most popular designs are the leopard print which comes in almost every colour.”

The salon has achieved worldwide recognition and an overwhelming amount of press and has recently opened a salon within Topshop which demonstrates the success of Reid’s venture, and nail art as a mainstream trend. Another successful nail artist to look at for inspiration is Sophy Robson, who is responsible for the epic talons at House of Holland and Gareth Pugh.

Whether it’s high definition of transfers, the endless possibilities of hand painted patterns and logos, the shade of the season (lilac), or F*** YOU slogan as worn by Lindsay in the courtroom, it’s time to let your hands do the talking.

Check out WAH for more crazy nails!

Grace Joel