Chanel doesn’t follow trends. It creates them. It’s a fashion that’s credited with making its own quilted, buttery leather pathways and their latest adventure in nails is no different.

Just as the nail varnish agenda welcomes in this summer’s very modest nude trend, so Chanel goes completely against the grain and shouts from the rooftops with its first ever pop-up, all-singing-all-dancing nail bar at Selfridges. Ok, yes, nail pop-ups are nothing new, but Chanel’s proposition is unlike anything you’ll have seen before. 

The bar, which will be as epic as those two-tone espadrilles (we’ve seen sneak preview sketches, it’s mega) will be at the department store in London from this Friday, 31 May, until 12 June. So that’s two weeks of no holds barred nail glory, people.

And you can expect big things, quite literally; giant bottles of Le Vernis bottles hanging from the ceiling, a special self-painting area (for free, no booking required) and whole walls filled with colours to send you into an indecisive meltdown within seconds. 

The expertly trained Chanel manicurists will be bringing with them all kinds of nail colours from both their new and classic collections. So whether you want to road-test the new sapphire blue Azure shade (which is basically like a holiday in a bottle) or prefer a couple of coats of the pillar-box red Fire, all desires will be catered for.

And for the wilder ones out there, there will be special nail designs on offer from talon queen Sophy Robson too.

The rapture that the nail bar will (and already has) receive is akin to the kind of applause that Chanel’s seasonal nail  varnishes bring with them year after year. They have waiting lists to match those of Birkin bags and cause the kind of in store stampede that the Boxing Day sales bring forth.

They’re as much a collector’s item as a 2.55 or ballet pump; here are our favourites from the archives…

It’s one way to ensure you’ll be dripping in Chanel. Literally.

Rouge Noir - 1994

Good old Rouge Noir, the glamorous dark red lacquer that adorned Uma Thurman’s nails in cult movie Pulp Fiction. It’s somewhere on the colour chart between the rich velvet banquettes at Hotel Costes and a bottle of full-bodied Beaujolais. It was, in fact, created nearly 20 years ago now by the brand’s Makeup Director at the the time, Heidi Morawetz, who simply poured a bottle of black and red varnish together and as if by magic, Rouge Noir was born.

Jade - 2009

The pale green Jade shade – half pistachio ice-cream, half My Little Pony pastel – which launched in October 2009 nearly caused a riot. A chic, fashion riot, that is. Oxford Street saw one of the most ridiculously long queue’s on the day that this hit Selfridges and stock sold out in just 40 minutes. Crazy.

Particulière - 2010

This beautiful chinchilla colour sparked the global mink nail trend. Course it did. It looks as at home on the nails of wealthy Russian trophy wives as it does on quirky street style bloggers. It was swapping hands on eBay for five times it retail price – I have one, it sits high up on an out-of-reach shelf alongside precious old diaries and family heirlooms. 

 

 

Mimosa - 2011

Never has yellow had so much glory. Not always the easiest colour to pull off (although it doesn’t stop them if their new yellow mascara is anything to go by), this beauty was on the fingernails of everyone from Gwen Stefani to Rihanna to the Danish tennis hotshot that is Caroline Wozniacki.  It’s like if you squeezed a lemon, a mango and a banana into a bottle. Sort of.

Orient Extreme - 2010

First seen back in June 2010 at the Paris-Shanghai Metiers d’Art show, this trio kicked off the whole nail art thing. Like, the whole global phenomenon that we’ve had for the last two and a half years. Chanel used the collection to create it’s iconic reverse manicure, which became a regular on the nails of most of Hollywood’s better known folk. Naturally.