From a personalised approach to classic shades to the latest evolution of the chrome trend, Kezia Parkins reveals the experts’ predictions for hot nail trends of the cooler autumn/winter 2024 season...
It's been a big year for nail art and nail techs as we start to see these unsung heroes of the beauty industry get their flowers. From designer Marc Jacobs fangirling over his nail tech on his social media to the global spotlight being drawn to Cynthia Erivo's nail artist responsible for the star's nails on the Wicked worldwide press tour.
These events are encouraging fans of nail art to be loud and proud with their choices, leaning into their individuality and allowing their nails to tell a story. But, as always there are some trends that will dominate this season, here are our predictions for the winter 2024 nail trends.
Mocha moment
Pantone has announced its highly anticipated Colour of the Year for 2025, unveiling PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse as the shade that will shape design trends over the next 12 months. We started seeing chocolate brown nails becoming hot in the autumn of 2022 thanks to Hayley Bieber's glazed chocolate manicures that kicked-off a viral trend. The star was back at it again this year making another seasonal nail trend with the 'maple syrup manicure,' which we predict will be a big nail trend towards the end of 2024 and throughout 2025.
Pantone describes Mocha Mousse as a hue that nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee. These are exactly the types of rich, warming tones you need to ace this trend.
Personalised reds
Last year at around this time we were seeing the rise of the “mob wife aesthetic” which came into its own by spring/summer. This meant classic French and classic reds in square shapes.
With the rise of colour theory and colour analysis in fashion and makeup, we are now seeing this traverse into the nail space with people making more personalised choices for their nail polish. “It’s got a very old-fashioned, slow fashion sophisticated vibe,” says Ellie Bebbington, trend forecasting enthusiast and owner of alt salon Doll Parts in Manchester. “It’s more like ‘I don't want to do this trend. I want to have the thing that suits me best.’ It's gone really individual again. And I don't mean individual as on loud. I mean individual like people thinking about what quietly suits them in the way our mums might have done.”
Translating that back to the salon, Bebbington says that while Doll Parts is known as a sanctuary for the experimental and extreme nail art lovers, lately they are seeing lots of people return for the same look – which is unusual for them.
“We're still getting a lot of level three and four treatments – the crazy nails – but our regulars are increasingly getting plain colors, or the same colour French or dancing around their own colour palette and what they normally have. They are just going a little bit classier. It’s going back to an old-school fashion thought process of ‘what looks better rather than what do I like the most?’”
This means instead of jumping on a trend like red for holiday season, it will be finding your own perfect shade of red, like we are used to doing in makeup with a red lip.
Going Green
Last year was proclaimed a Barbie summer and in 2024 it was declared Brat Girl Summer. Instead of the world being painted pink, we saw it set ablaze with acid lime green thanks to Charlie XCX’s album sensation Brat.
“It’s the more ‘Matrixy’ end of the Y2K fashion era and personally I’m so glad the Barbie aesthetic is over” says Bebbington.
Nathan Taylor, Bristol-based nail tech famed for his creativity, adds, “The LGBTQ+ community are already hot on the lime green nails trend and I’ve been asked a few times since Brat being released to colour match for nails. Queer and trans people are usually at the forefront of trends and I can see this one trickling down to the mainstream.”
While acid green is not for everyone, this subcultural shade will likely drip down into the general zeitgeist by autumn/winter by way of a “clean girl” skinny French or mixed with black for edgy geometric manicures.
“I think in general we are going to go a bit more geometric,” says Bebbington. “I can see shapes going rounded square paired with geometric nail art in this acid lime – that would be really cool.”
Another movie release that has capitalised on colour is Wicked, which this autumn has seen both of these mega marketing moments collide almost bringing Brat and Barbie together while the world is painted pink and green. We predict that winter nails will reflect this, after all, "pink goes good with green" and many are taking inspiration from Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba-coded red carpet looks.
Nails by Shea Osei for Cynthia Erivo on the Wicked press tour...
Cyber jewel tones
Chrome nail art has been a top trend for over five years now – just when we think eye-catching chromes are out, they find their way back. While we saw a lot of silver and gold metallic nails on the catwalks for A/W24, these are not the only shiny shades you should expect clients to be craving.
“I think the chrome trend is going to go jewel toned – like stained glass window colours,” says Bebbington.
This we can see reflected in the A/W collections of some of the biggest nail brands like OPI’s Metallic Mega Mix collection, the brand’s most extensive line of metal shades yet, which will help chrome powder-hating techs achieve looks quicker and with less mess. The shades Y2Slay, Lip Pink Battle and Cosmo Money are great for jewel-toned manis as we get closer to Christmas.
Muted crèmes
Muted crèmes are another feature of brands’ A/W nail collections. For spring/summer, boyish colours became big.
“I think navy and also forest green will be big for autumn/winter,” says Bebbington. “But perhaps the difference this year will be this creamy element that will make manicures look softer and chicer.” Artistic Nail Design’s Seductive Sage is the perfect example of this.
In 2025, the colour of the year is predicted to do a 360 next year, with trend forecaster WGSN predicting that it will move going from the warm, subtle Peach Fuzz in 2024 to Future Dusk a murky, moody blueish purple with a creamy element next year, so this might be just the shade for clients that want to be ahead of the curve.
What’s The Hangup from Gelish’s AW collection could be a great dupe for the forecasted shade of 2025. “For more experimental clients, Future Dusk with the contrast of lime green will really pop,” says Taylor. Turn the page for our pick of the professional brands’ colour collections.
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