TALK Global Media
NAILED IT
Genre: Documentary
Year: 2018
Release: Digital
Director: Adele Free Pham
Countless Americans from coast to coast get their nails done in salons likely owned by Vietnamese entrepreneurs, who’ve come to dominate an eight-billion-dollar manicure industry. The story of the Vietnamese nail business began with twenty refugee women and a chance encounter with famed Alfred Hitchcock film actress and humanitarian Tippi Hedren. Part of the first wave of war refugees in 1975, these twenty Vietnamese manicurists sought a way to support their children and families through the nail business, unknowingly sparking a cultural phenomenon. This hour-long documentary presents a lineage of legacy moments in the American nail business, from its humble immigrant start to its ubiquity across the country, from Los Angeles to the Bronx.
Above: Vietnamese refugees depart from Hope Village Refugee Camp in Weimar, California, ready to make new lives for themselves. Some of them will end up in the nail salon business.
Left: Tippi Hedren brings her personal manicurist, Dusty Cootes, to teach the first twenty Vietnamese manicurists in America the tricks of the trade in 1975.