POP 149 Saturday, 7 November 2009

Today’s POP is Isabelle, who still can’t get over the fact that her nails are all bling bling now!

Selfridges just seems to be the most happening place this week, first there was the Jimmy Choo PEP Project pop-up installation and now this: From today until the 11th of this month the WAH nails ladies have relocated from Dalston to Selfridges Beauty Hall! For all of those who still don’t know what WAH nails is, if you can’t make it this week make sure you get yourself over to their salon on Kingsland Road in Dalston – Trust me, it’s worth the experience and before you know it you (or your nails) will be hooked! WAH-nails is the brainchild of our beloved Sharmadean Reid, who is also Contributing Editor of Arena Homme + and creator of WAH-magazine.com. While I got the superb pimp my nails treatment – I chatted a bit with la Miss Reid:

You always had a thing going for crazy nails – how is it running your own salon and having people do exactly the designs you love?

It’s weird having a salon. I laugh about it all the time. My fiancé finds it hilarious that we thought of it a year ago and now we’ve been open 3 months and we’re having this pop-up in Selfridges. He feels like he’s inherited an attention-seeking stepchild, ha-ha! But seriously- it’s strange. Our nail artists are so talented! Cause our concept was fairly new in the UK – not nail art itself but concentrating on fashion styles and making it the forefront of what we do – they were a little hesitant at first, but now they come up with the most amazing designs unprompted, I just feed ‘em a little inspiration! I made them go to the Pop Life exhibition at the Tate Modern and they came back and started doing Keith Haring and Murakami nails!

I can so see you conquering the world with this, where do you dream of being in 3 years with WAH nails? Dubai, L.A., Moscow?

Ha-ha! Yeh I’m building an empire! What I would love is for nails done to be the norm – whether they have nail art or not. What I would REALLY love is for the way that ghd and Topshop have transformed the look of girls up and down the UK because of democratic products that make a groomed (celebrity?) look easy to achieve, be emulated with us. Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna all have amazing nails, why not the girl on the street?
Dubai already has amazing nail art bars and in America they have tons. I think I would like to have a chain in the UK first then maybe one in Japan, as they are amazing at nails there but not adept at painting designs by hand. It’s mainly rhinestones and jewels there.

I heard that stylists and photographers could also book one of the WAH ladies for shoots?

We can be booked for shoots, but only if it’s super crazy and creative nails as that’s our thing…

How did this Selfridges pop-up salon idea come up?

Selfridges approached us to occupy the Hilary site in the beauty hall which changes every few weeks. It’s been extremely hard work but it’s an amazing opportunity for us to reach a wider clientele. Despite how cool Vogue Italia says it is, not everyone’s willing to trek to Dalston!

Not a bad move – from urban Dalston to shi-shi Selfridges. What’s next?

My plans for future are to make the Dalston salon as cool and open as it can be. I’m looking for more female artists to exhibit on the wall space next year and we’re building an office at the back. I’d also like to begin my chain by opening a salon in my hometown of Wolverhampton. I’d also like to look into a product range but as its all self funded I gotta take baby steps! I just want everyone to have pretty nails! I’ll get there soon!