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Music

Most Wanted: Sleigh Bells Nail Wraps

We talked to Alexis from Sleigh Bells and her longterm nail artist Ria about their limited edition nail wraps, female-centric merch, and Grimes' pussy rings. Stick that in your festive stocking.

Save for a few exceptions, band merch is often overpriced, a watered down extension of an artist’s aesthetic, and destined to end up in a sleep tee drawer. Historically, it’s worked as an “I was there” token. Sleigh Bells are one of the exceptions. Since their debut album Treats, Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss have taken great care to match their sugarcoated punk edge to their merch with stylish crop tops and tank tops as an alternative to the boxy standard. Their latest run of Bells gear is their most unique yet: Bitter Rivals artwork-inspired nail wraps. Dreamed up by Krauss, her longtime Brooklyn nail stylist Ria, and Rad Nails founder Chrissy Mahlmeister, the eye-popping tiger-striped and skull-emblazoned decals ring in at an affordable $12.

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Even better is Krauss’ girl power thinking behind them: following in the footsteps of merch mastermind Grimes, the Sleigh Bells frontwoman set out to create a Bells souvenir that ladies could pick up in a male-dominated environment. Just in time for Christmas, consider the nail wraps—which were printed in a limited batch of 5000—to be stocking stuffer gold. Krauss and Ria separately phoned in to talk about meeting through the singer’s mother, Miller’s contribution to the project, and the growing trend of feminist merch.

Noisey: Did you come up with the aesthetic for the nail wraps around the time you created the Bitter Rivals cover?
Ria: The idea came up when they were shooting album covers. We thought it would be cool to do a limited edition set as the nail wrap.
Alexis: We were recording Bitter Rivals, and Derek had recently got a pink Jackson guitar and a tiger Jackson guitar—an awesome eBay find. One day, he rested them on the stand and took a photo. We were just like, “Wow that looks so great.” It was in our minds to photograph them; we rented a studio for a few hours and took the photos that are in the vinyl and CD. I knew I wanted Ria to draw inspiration from the artwork. I think they’re pretty representative of the record. Bitter Rivals is a really garish cover. We wanted to bring out those bold colors and do something kind of bombastic because that’s the way the music feels to me.
Ria: We based our ideas off the guitars. We wanted to incorporate the tiger stripes and pink from the guitars, but we also wanted to make it my own and Alexis’ own ideas—she came up with the drip, that way there was more you could see other than the album art. We met with Chrissy and talked about what we wanted. I drew it up. Once we saw the samples, we just fell in love with them and were like, “We should totally do it.” It’s not all that surprising to hear that you and Derek knew right away what the cover would be. By now, you’ve created a really distinct signature.
Alexis: For every record, there’s always an idea of what the cover is going to be—usually two or three ideas—and it was the same for Bitter Rivals. Then we saw the guitars and just knew they’d be the cover. Same [with] Reign of Terror—we saw a photo and knew it was right. There’s not a lot of deliberating and revising—maybe sometimes that’s to our detriment—but I feel like we work on instinct and spontaneity and we generate an idea and either love it or hate it. That was how the nails worked. We had this idea and Ria drew something up.

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You’re one of the few artists thinking about merch through a feminine lens.
Alexis: I think merch in general tends to always appeal more to men than women. Obviously, there are plenty of female artists that have lots of great merch for girls but I think in our world—specifically, with more rock-based music—it tends to be a lot of t-shirts and designs that aren’t the most flattering for women. We’ve tried to do more feminine pieces, we’ve had crop tops and tank tops, but I just wanted to do something that was catered towards girls and younger women coming to our shows. We have another crop top that will be out for the spring, which I’m really excited about. It’s another fusion of album art, but very much for women.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that we have a stronger fanbase of women between the ages of 15 and 19, and obviously a lot of women in their 20s. This is an accessory that I think will appeal to a lot of younger girls. I love the idea that a girl can come to our show and be in a chaotic and abrasive environment but then leave with something that’s very feminine and feels special to them.

Are you familiar with Grimes’ pussy rings? She’s talked about creating them as a response to the “dick-dominated” venue world.
Alexis: I’m friends with [Grimes’] Claire Boucher and I love her positions in terms of sexuality and femininity. I think it’s really important for a female artist to cater to her female fans. The tension between female artists and female fans is dissipating and there’s a celebration of womanhood in music, with fans, and women in the pit crowdsurfing. Since I started, I’ve noticed that the presence of women at shows is growing. And it’s definitely something that needs to be celebrated. The fact that there are more women in control of creative decisions means that we’re only going to see more incredible collaborations, whether it’s the pussy rings or nail art—things that are going to get women even more invested in the shows they’re coming to see. It’s a small move in the grand scheme of things. I remember going to hardcore shows when I was in high school and feeling very much on the fringe. It was a really macho, aggressive environment I wanted to partake in but just felt threatened. Not that my safety was being compromised, it was more like I couldn’t be a part of it. Now, I think that’s changing. I think Sleigh Bells are an interesting mix of that hardcore punk mentality and a feminine presence and that’s something Derek and I have always talked about. We’ve always wanted our shows to embody the energy of a hardcore show but be friendly to 16-year-old girls who might have discovered us from an iPhone commercial. We’re very much interested in bridging those two worlds.

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sleigh bells

How did you two first meet?
Ria: We’ve been working together for four years now. I met her through her mother—she came in to get a manicure and pedicure. She told Alexis about me and we started talking and it grew into a friendship and we’ve been working together ever
since. Ria's work all over Alexis!

Do people come in asking for Alexis’ nails often?
Ria: All the time. They’re like, “Oh, I want my nails to look like Alexis Krauss.” They take inspiration from each set that she does. They normally find all of the pictures on Instagram. A lot of people really like the custom sets I come up with when I do her nails.
Alexis: Not every fan can visit her salon and the nail wraps are a more affordable way to access to a product that would normally be exclusive. The idea of bringing nail art to kids who live in small towns and don’t have access to salons like Hello Beautiful or Wah Nails—it’s cool to make that type of product. It was a really fun process and I would love to do something else with Rad Nails in the future because it’s run by a woman and she’s really killing it. She’s a customer of Ria’s as well—so it was a really nice, organic collaboration. Chrissy lives in Greenpoint right by Ria’s salon so we would go up to her apartment and work on ideas and it felt really good. There was no bureaucracy or compromising for art.

Get the Sleigh Bells nail wraps here.

Marissa is a rad writer based in LA and she's on Twitter - @marissagmuller