CliqOnU x Katie Collins Desert Sun Inspiration

We were coming out of the initial lockdown of Covid, and outdoor restaurants had just opened with restrictions. After 4 months of Ground Hog Day, what better place to lunch than Soho Malibu. The sun was out, we could hear the ocean waves, and we were enjoying one of our first moments of being face-to-face with other human beings, in what felt like a VERY long time. We had just launched CliqOnU amid the pandemic and we were excited for all that was to come.

We met Katie Collins one year prior to the launch of CliqOnU at a very different kind of lunch…without masks, yet one thing that remained the same was the excitement and power of lifting each other up as women in our passions. Here we were taking in the ocean air, other human beings, eating our Cobb salads, and sharing stories about our new pandemic lives. Talking about fashion and art, and about all that had transpired in the past year. Katie, fashion stylist to celebrities such as Charlize Theron, and fashion magazines, Cosmopolitan and Women’s Health had been a supporter of CliqOnU from the start, “Since I’ve started wearing CliqOnU nails, I have received SO many compliments. They save me an incredible amount of time and energy and make it so easy to switch nails to match my looks.”

Katie had gone to school to study art, which led her into the world of fashion. She shared with us why she was drawn to being a stylist. “Styling is an intersection between art and vision, and it is also about personal connection with myself and my clients. It brings me great joy to allow someone’s beauty to shine through my lens of fashion,” said Collins. CliqOnU Ready To Wear Nails became part of that fashion for her. “Nail art and fashion are inevitably intertwined, because the perfect nail completes the look just as hair and make-up do. It’s the combining of all the elements that complete a whole picture.”

I excused myself from the table to one of the most underrated “idea” locations…the bathroom. Thinking about art, fashion, our Ready To Wear Nails…all brought to life from creative self-expression. Art is fashion, and our press on nails are both art and fashion. I came back to the table interrupting, “Let’s do a collaboration!” The first celebrity fashion stylist to collaborate on a nail art design. Katie was in!

Katie had just shared with us about being on a shoot, wanting to create the perfect shade of burgundy nails she could see in her mind. “While on set with a client I asked a nail artist to mix together several different shades of nail polish to create a dark burgundy until it really felt perfect!” She had us at felt. We design our manicures and pedicures from a place of how they make you feel when you wear them.

The brainstorming began. We wanted to know what inspired Katie the most.  “Joshua Tree is one of my most sacred spaces and I have been traveling there since I was a child. The desert brings me a sense of peace and connection to myself and to nature, and I have seen some of the most incredible sunsets there,” said Collins.

We knew this nail set must encompass the desert, the sun, Katie’s favorite burgundy. I wanted to know what Joshua Tree felt like. I was the only one of the 3 of us who had not been there yet, so I found myself taking a trip a few weeks later to this sacred place. What I couldn’t understand the most, is why it had taken me so long to ever visit it. There is something about the stillness of the rocks, the light and golden colors that move, the air you breathe that you can’t put into complete words, but you can put into art. We wanted to share that feeling, which we have in our collaboration of CliqOnU x Katie Collins Desert Sun Ready To Wear Nails.

Katie Collins, “This set captures the spirit of the beauty of the desert.”