The Money-cure

What’s the biggest trend for autumn? Is it biker boots? Pheasant feathers? Nose jobs? I know the fashion world can be a battlefield, but don’t weep, poor un-stylish trolls, because the biggest beauty fad this season is money! And who doesn’t have buckets of that to throw around?

Kelly Osbourne made a total splash at the Emmys last month when she showed up with what she later instagrammed (natch) as $250,000 worth of black diamonds in her nail varnish. “In her nail varnish?” we all thought. “But you can get black diamante for 59p in Dalston…” And then everything became clear. In Hollywood, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, as long as it’s worth enough to change a single homeless child’s life forever. Kelly O, that pushover bitch, issued a half-assed apology after being criticised for being disgustingly wasteful and tasteless, when we know she was just being her glamorous self! The media can be such a bully sometimes, am I right?

Follow in the footsteps of this leading style icon by sticking your spare cash onto your falsies, and don't take shit from nobody. Here are my three favourite methods straight outta Hollywood, where recession is something that happens to drug habits, not economies.

1. BLOW IT ON BLOW

This is bee-yond nifty. Under the guise of a false-tipped frenchie, you can line your nails with cocaine and sniff away in front of your parole officer to your heart's content. You shouldn’t need me to tell you that nail wraps and drug wraps are so summer 2011, catch up babe, everyone from Cat Marnell to Chris Brown knows a cocaine top-coat is the only beauty look to be seen with this AW12. Cut your nail tips to size, coat them in glue, and then roll them in your big glass coke bowl. You don’t have one of them…? Ew.

2. USE AN ORPHAN CHILD'S HAIR

As you can imagine, locating an orphan who’s willing to part with their organic, un-dyed, naturally blonde hair, is really expensive. Which is why this money-cure is an immediate symbol of wealth and power (and possible child-trafficking links). Fashion wise, the natural fibres and fluid lines of the hair will catch the eye of any art-loving St Martins graduate. Or in a more sophisticated environment, a gentleman’s club for example, the high levels of maintenance required to intensely condition, blow-dry and style the nail hairs will impress any suitor of a higher calibre. These nails come with a warning though; no swimming, eating or going to the toilet. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t do any of those things anyway. The only thing you might have a slight issue with is the difficulty you’ll have vomiting. But you can get a maid to help you out, right?

3. FLASH THAT CA$H

Why beat around the bush with nail varnishes that you have to tweet are worth $250,000.00 when there is such a thing as notes of money, and superglue? Simply cut the note to size, glue it on and wave your nails in people's faces. No, it’s not tasteless, it’s fashion.

The money-cure has a very specific time and place, and if you refuse to play by its rules, everyone’s going to think you’re a stuck-up trust-fund bitch. So don't wear it to the MET Gala, K? The key to the money-cure is to balance it with the rest of your outfit. While celebrity style icons like Taylor Momsen and the Olsen Twins champion Hollywood hobo-chic, you’ll notice that despite the rips in their cashmere, they always manage to emit the smug, honeyed vapour of the billion dollars blowing up their Amex. Dressing like a tramp while spilling a Frappuccino all over your shredded $3,000 Balmain T-shirt is a tried and tested way of communicating to the world that you get poverty, while maintaining that your dog is worth more than most people's combined extended family earn in a year.

So while you’re wearing your cash nails, make sure you throw on some homeless person gloves as a noble nod to the 99 percent. There is such a thing as a conscience, you know.

Follow Bertie on Twitter: @bertiebrandes

Previously: Recession-Proof Your Face