On a cold weekday afternoon in late January, two customers sit beside each other inside a nail salon in Tokyo’s trendy Minamiaoyama shopping district. To the sounds of light laughter, they model their hands under lamplight and discuss their ideas for the designs about to become reality.

Since 2022, Ouka Sakuragi has been a neirisuto (nail artist) at the Virth+Lim salon, which specializes in short nail art that emphasizes natural length and shape. Inspired by impressionist painter Claude Monet, Sakuragi’s specialty is soft, pastel-like marble designs, but she says many of her customers bring their own personality to their nails.

“Recently, rather than coming in with fixed design requests, clients will come to me with a memory from their travels, drawing inspiration from an art exhibition, a music video they like or a food they really enjoyed,” says Sakuragi, 29. “(They) want to preserve and embody those elements with patterns and colors on their nails.”

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