With nail art getting more extreme by the minute (think Cardi B’s three-foot-long tips featured in a recent Reebok ad), it’s hard to shock us. But Eichi Matsunaga managed to do just that with his futuristic nail art, reminiscent of sci-fi movies that (presumably) take place in the ’80s.
Made to look like robotic features, fuzed ontop human hands, his designs incorporate translucent details as well as custom made metal pieces. Matsunaga measures each client’s fingertips in advance, creating the custom pieces with a 3D printer—a painstakingly long process that can take up to three weeks.
Originally from Tokyo, and currently based in New York City, Matsunaga admits it was his sister which inspired him to take the leap of faith into fashion.
“She was working at a nail salon when I graduated from high school and,” he recalled in an interview with Dazed Magazine. “I used to help her prepare nail art samples for the salon at her apartment. Through this, I discovered that nails were my calling, and I enrolled in a nail art school soon after that.”
“My nails usually verge on the futuristic but I am still very interested in traditional methods and want to incorporate them,” he explains. “My philosophy is that detail is everything. There is a direct connection between my work and other cultural Japanese traditions in Japan, and the overarching theme is the careful attention to each stage of a process.”
Follow his Instagram page for more.
