Keep your cool

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 in the cooler autumn/winter season

Predicting the trends for autumn winter is always more challenging than in the summer months, perhaps because the anticipation of summer brings such excitement and therefore an explosion of creativity, whereas in autumn things become more pared back. It could also be that here in the UK, summer is coming later and later, if at all sometimes – delaying the layering and the muted tones and simplistic nail art into later on in the year.

What helps determine the looks set to be big in the cooler months is the catwalks of the Autumn/Winter 2024 Fashion Week shows that occur in February and give a lot of direction as to the trends and tones that will trickle down to the consumer.

Nails extended with press-ons were seen all over the AW24 runways and the usual suspects in terms of shade and shape return with but in a more evolved way – from a personalised twist on the classic red to yet another reincarnaiton of the chrome trends.

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 tips 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.

“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 in loud. I mean individual like people thinking about what quietly suits them in the way our mums might have done.”

The anti-trend trend

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 that instead of jumping on a trend like red for winter, it will be finding your own perfect shade of red, like we are used to doing in makeup with a red lip.

Matrix moment

Last year was proclaimed a Barbie summer and in 2024 it was declared “brat girl” summer. Instead of the world being painted pink, we are seeing 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, founder of Buff Bar in Bristol and a 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 in the rounded square paired with geometric nail art in this acid lime – that would be really cool.”

Lapointe’s Fall 2024 collection was enhanced with nails featuring a geometric lines on a unicorn chrome backdrop – another nod towards Y2K. cyber girl aesthetics.

Cyber jewel tones

Chrome nail art has been a top trend for over five years now – just when we think chromes are out, they find their way back in. While we saw a lot of silver and gold metallic nails on the catwalks for AW24, these are not the only shiny shades you should expect your clients to be craving.

“I think the chrome trend is going to go jewel toned – like stained glass window colours,” says Bebbington.

We can see this reflected in the autumn/winter 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 more quickly and with less mess. The shades Y2Slay, Lip Pink Battle and Cosmo Money will be great for jeweltoned manis as we get closer to Christmas party season.

Muted crèmes

Muted crèmes are another feature of brands’ AW 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.

The colour of the year is predicted to do a 360 next year, with trend forecaster WGSN predicting that the warm, subtle Peach Fuzz that was Pantone Colour of the Year 2024 will do a 360, making way for Future Dusk (pictured above); a murky, moody blueish purple with a creamy element, 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.