Vogue reports that tonight, at 2330 Broadway in Harlem, Teyana Taylor will swing open the doors to her new ’90s-themed nail salon, Junie Bee Nails. There will be celebrity friends like Missy Elliott and Lil’ Kim in attendance, along with the iconic couturier Dapper Dan, whose guerrilla-style counterfeiting of luxury labels like Louis Vuitton and Fendi were made famous by clients Mike Tyson and LL Cool J in the ’80s. Born and raised in Harlem—which is “one big runway” where “everyone is automatically born with style and grace,” says Taylor with pride—Dap (who now runs a nearby Gucci-backed atelier) will also design the salon’s staff uniforms, pieces that will no doubt complement the artists’ beauty looks: baby hairs and acrylic nails and gold bamboo earrings, at least two pair. In fact, they’ll look a lot like the girl that LL Cool J raps about in his ’90s hit “Around the Way Girl,” the song that Taylor had on repeat while designing the salon because, presumably, of how it talks up the everyday woman who “ain’t afraid to do her thang,” as the track goes.
It’s that decade’s everything-flies, everything-is-fly vibe that Taylor is going for with Junie Bee Nails, which she named after her 2-year-old daughter with her husband, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Iman Shumpert. “I love that [time] so much because that was the raw era,” she says, recalling the bright colors and the positive vibes that reverberated in ’90s fashion, music, and art. “And the nails—they had so much fun with the nails, because you weren’t judged for how you wanted to wear them, no matter how fun or long [they were].”
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