The Robson Report: Jourdan Dunn’s Yellow Nails on i-D
Meet Sophy Robson, a London-based luxury nail artist with her own salons. She also has her well-manicured finger, literally, on the pulse of all things high fashion—from celebrity photo shoots to couture runway shows.
With her new FashionEtc column, you get to peek inside the nail files of one of the best in the biz. So, without further ado, Sophy:
A new issue of i-D magazine recently came out, which was pretty much a dream shot for any nail artist working in fashion—a whole hand of colored nails on the cover, all in shot!
i-D magazine is one of the most famous British publications. I, myself, used to buy it when I used to buy magazines [perks of working in the industry] and it has featured many iconic images over the years.
The last issue featured a Lara Stone/David Bailey story with makeup by Peter Philips [of Chanel fame], which was a joy to work on, and even got spider nails on the cover, which I'm pretty sure was a fashion first. So when I was asked to do nails for a Jourdan Dunn/Alasdair McLellan cover, I was more than happy to oblige.
I've known Jourdan since she first started in this business and she is proper lovely! I'm so happy to see her rising the model success ladder. I am also very good friends with Alasdair and work with him a lot.
The relationship you have with the photographer is key to having a good day and a successful image production, I think! On the shoot day the theme for the pictures was to be retro, part rockabilly, part Sade in the '80s, but slick and sophisticated.
As we had the looks discussion the yellow color nails came into my head—I was thinking of a Madonna Smash Hits image [magazine cover from February 1984] for some reason. So I mixed an American Apparel neon yellow I had with Mimosa by Chanel to get the pigment [just] right and everyone agreed that it worked!
Lucia Pica did the makeup and Anthony Turner was the hairstylist. On the set, they were trying different poses—some solo of Jourdan and some with the male model Rob Evans.
I cheekily suggested Jourdan put her hand over her eye as she was having difficulty winking. The i-D directors had said they were trying to move away from that pose on their covers. ... I wonder if they've had a rethink now! [We'll just have to wait and see.]
–Sophy
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