Students paint China chic onto nails

While the Quackduck from Italian designer Mattia Fossati and Chinese artist Xie Chai’s installation “Matisse Garden” made the most impression at “Escaping to Peach Garden,” a creative design fair at Langyuan Garden in Longhua District over the weekend, a booth set up by six Shenzhen University (SZU) students drew a lot of attention from curious visitors.

The team of seniors from SZU’s School of Media and Communication, led by Lin Zefeng, presented their China chic series featuring wearable nails at the fair as an effort to promote their treasured Chinese traditions through fashion trends embraced by the Gen-Zers.

A booth set up by six Shenzhen University students at the “Escaping to Peach Garden” fair in Longhua District presents China chic wearable nails over the past weekend. Courtesy of the interviewees

Lin and team members, with the help of AI graphic tool Midjourney, created dozens of wearable nails in four series themed around mythical Chinese creatures, Tang Dynasty, Silk Road, and traditional art and architecture.

Crowds were huddled in front of the booth, trying out the wearable nails painted with abstract patterns of pandas, dragons, bamboos, and orchids. Priced at 29.9 yuan (US$4.17) a set, the over 30 sets the students prepared sold out quickly.

“The sets that feature patterns such as deserts, phoenix, and the moon in the colors and styles reminiscent of the murals of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes are the most popular among our designs,” Lin explained, adding that the team will focus on the Silk Road series of products in the future.

The nail art project is the team’s graduation project whose conception started almost a year ago. “We had set out to do research and wished to create graphic designs with nuanced cultural connotations to promote Chinese traditions,” Lin told Shenzhen Daily. “But later, we decided that a tangible product relevant to the young people will better fulfill our mission.”

The team members researched on possible products on shopping sites including taobao.com and amazon.com, and finally zeroed in on wearable nails as the chosen candidate.

They then registered the accounts titled “GiveMeFive NailArt” on TikTok, Instagram, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu to sell their idea and interact with people interested in the subject.

“We invested 800 yuan in a second-hand machine, purchased on goofish.com (a Chinese shopping site of used goods affiliated with Alibaba), bought raw materials from Taobao, and started our production in the dormitory,” Lin said. After a month of trial and error, the students were able to churn out decent wearable nails.

One of the team members also reached out to her sister who runs a nail art shop in Shenzhen and helped them to improve their products, adding shiny decorations of artificial pearls and sequins.

“The popup of mature AI tools such as Midjourney helped us materialize our ideas more efficiently,” Lin said. “With quite some cultural product vloggers getting interested in our project during the fair, we hope to follow it through and explore a bigger market.”

Wang Jianlei, a SZU teacher and mentor of the students, endorsed their project. “These kids came up with an exciting idea that appeals to fashionable young women interested in trying out new stuff,” he said. “Trivial it may seem, nail art can become a bridge between Chinese and Western cultures, and between traditions and modern life.”