For at least a few days most weeks, Mei Kawajiri makes hotel calls to celebrities like Cardi B, Heidi Klum, Ariana Grande and Bad Bunny to whip up viral creations, often shared with her more than 343,000 Instagram followers. Her medium might be even more impressive: extravagant nail art — minutely detailed 3-D pastries, hand-drawn portraits of anime heroines and six-inch acrylics embedded with jewels and bits of lace.
When she’s not collaborating with celebrities, Kawajiri works out of her combined home and office on the Lower East Side, her nail equipment tucked in a corner across from her toddler’s playpen, toys strewn across foam and carpeted mats.
It has been a long journey for Kawajiri who, after a childhood spent in Kyoto, opened her own studio in Harajuku, a stylish neighborhood in Tokyo, at 23. In 2012, she came to New York on the advice of a client’s American friend, who said that her work deserved to be on the covers of magazines.
After arriving in New York alone, speaking no English, she would walk the four-mile stretch from the Lower East Side to the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue with a portfolio of her designs.
“I would ask people, ‘Do you think I should move to New York?’” said Kawajiri, who declined to give her age, but whose short stature, blunt bangs, hot pink Miu Miu hair clips and bunny slippers epitomize the kawaii aesthetic, which emphasizes bright colors and cuteness.
