Half-Moon and New Moon Manicure at New York Fashion Week Spring 2011

Edgy new moon and half-moon manicures arise at New York Fashion Week Spring 2011 and they are casting a new light on our fingertips.

The moon manicure, which takes the typical French manicure, turns it inside out, and paints the crescent to match the tips, has been creeping back into the fashion lexicon over the past four seasons.

On the first day of New York Fashion Week, new versions of  "the moon"  were spotted at three different shows; this trend is anything but waning.


Ruffian designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais are the original champions of the moon manicure, having shown this flapper-inspired look for four seasons and counting.


They showed a "monogram moon," at Ruffian's Spring 2011 runway show, a wildly original idea that includes a putty base juxtaposed against glossy black accent polish and an intricate Ruffian logo stamped on models' ring fingers.


At Vena Cava, Nonie Creme of Butter London took a graphic spin on the look with a fuller moon. She painted nails with a café au lait shade on top, and a bottom half-moon of black.

 A fuller moon manicure at Vena Cava Spring 2011


"The half-moon was a status symbol in the '20's, since spending so much time on your nails meant you were of a higher class. We've made it more current by elongating the half-moon and making the colors more graphic in contrast," Creme said.

It's a new moon, if you will, and I am howling over it.