Picture hats, white gloves, frothy frocks, colorful gardens, and watercress sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off, served off silver salvers. Garden parties are evocative of a more elegant, gentile lifestyle of days gone by. Queen Elizabeth, for example, is famous for her garden parties, a traditional started more than 140 years ago when Queen Victoria popularized the much-coveted event. A classic garden party might look like a colorful, 19th Century painting, but today’s garden parties aren’t just tea and rose-printed napkins. These days, a garden party is a reason to get dresses up, sip a cocktail, enjoy an elegant afternoon. These are the garden parties that are the inspiration for Janie Bryant’s New “Garden Party” Collection for Nailtini.
In case you haven’t heard of Janie Bryant, she is an Emmy award-winning fashion designer, author of The Fashion File (Grand Central, 2010) and creator of her own “MOD” line of women’s wear for QVC as well as the fashions seen on AMC’s “Mad Men.” Her take on nails for this Summer marries a vision of garden party for the well heeled, with just a bit of wild child. Ms. Bryant ought to know about bringing the past to life and creating a frenzy of a new trend, since she was the recipient of the 2009 and 2010 Costume Designers Guild Award for “Outstanding Period/Fantasy TV Series” for her work on “Mad Men.”
The limited edition Garden Party collection features four colors: The creamy, dreamy, opaque, light confectionary pink “Blushing Lady” ; an intense, deep navy called “Admiral Perry” that reminds me of the shiny hulls of Newport yachts; “Blue Carnation” is a soft,sheer-ish, light blue/grey the color of a debutante’s dancing slippers ala the Great Gatsby or barring that vision, a wash of color that looks modern, but still work-appropriate. The final color in the quartet is “Garden Jubilee,” a sheery, shimmery soft gold overcoat that can be worn on bare nails, or as a top coat to create a “nail cocktail” : of sorts. l.
Summer is waning, but it’s not too late to get the (garden) party started! These Nailtini Garden Party shades are too much fun to do without. You can get each for a suggested retail price of $14.00 per 0.5 fl. oz. bottle at QVC, Beauty 360 and Duane Reade Look Boutiques..