If you follow Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss on Instagram (@KraussingAround), you know what she's trying to say through fashion these days: It's all about your your nails, girl.
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Krauss has taken her love of nails a bit further than the normal rock star. She even invited Ria Lopez, her 24-year-old manicurist, aboard the S.S. Coachella.
The Sleigh Bells singer lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where Lopez's mom owns a shop, Maritza's. "One day, I just popped in," Krauss says, "and we initially started doing very traditional manicures, and then I would come in and go, 'Can you try this?' And Ria just kept getting more adventurous and creative.
"We spent more and more time together, and then I would bring her on photo shoots, video shoots. Now she just has her own totally unique thing going."
Lopez, with the crew of the Celebrity Silhouette, is sawing down the gnarly nails of S.S. Coachella cruisers and making them gorgeous. Lopez's options are exquisite. There was a little dripping, inverted pentagram for the metalheads; an eye in a pyramid, presumably, for the Egyptians; a peace sign and an orange yin-yang that, honestly, made me wish I weren't such a nail biter.
I brought my press-on nails called "Deceptions" and glued them to my poor hands and asked Lopez to go at 'em. She was game, painting all over my odd-fitting plastic claws. Nia was still working away long after the 1 p.m. cutoff time, even as a group of lady boaters moved over to the "Boats and Crafts" table to make things like snazzy sailor hats with plastic flowers on them.
"She's always coming up with ideas, and a lot of times I'm literally like, 'Whatever you want to do; I trust you.'" Krauss says of Lopez. "But then we're always referencing fashion, patterns, album art, you name it."
See, album art. Music, fashion couldn't do it without you.
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