The MoMA Magazine Podcast “That’s Why Lil’ Kim and Flo-Jo Matter”: Talking About Nail Art
Sep 2, 2025
In this conversation, Tressie McMillan Cottom, a professor and writer, delves into the captivating history of nail art and its profound ties to beauty, power, and freedom. She highlights how societal expectations shape our perceptions of beauty, particularly for women of color. The talk journeys through the evolution of nail artistry as a form of personal expression and resistance, using examples like sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner to illustrate how bold nail styles become symbols of individuality. It's a celebration of nails as both art and activism.
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Everyday Beauty Reveals Big Power
- Tressie McMillan Cottom links beauty, economics, and inequality to daily choices and social life.
- She argues big concepts like capitalism become real through ordinary consumer and aesthetic decisions.
Beauty Is Socially Constructed
- Beauty is often framed as objective but is socially constructed to uphold hierarchies.
- Tressie says that making beauty "natural" masks the labor and power shaping standards.
Hands As Class And Gender Signals
- Hands and nails signal class, labor, and femininity because they visibly show who does manual work.
- Tressie explains soft hands became a marker of not doing labor and thus of social status.
