I love the power of gestures and demonstration. I particularly love when there’s a historical story to be told behind it.
Apparently, when nail polish first came on the scene, it was quite tacky and implied vulgarity. So, how did it go from this to a woman’s must-have treatment? (seriously, I’m in New York now and I have NEVER seen so many manicure places. Hard to beleive there are that many fingers in this city.) I digress. Back to nail polish and it’s radical transformation; which is all due to Queen Mary. While King George was on a trip to Bognor, the Queen took it upon herself to go shopping. She went into Woolworths (hard to believe, yes) and bought herself some nail polish. The New York Times got wind of this and printed the story. Pretty soon nail polish took off amongst ladies and their vulgar counterparts alike.

I love this story. In a modern context, I wonder who is our Queen Mary? What do we need her to do to get people to see us differently? We don’t have to take this analogy too seriously. Perhaps its the vulgar lady we need on side?!