Runways work a weird magic. Without it, many a makeup product is tenderly conceived, midwifed into the world with the greatest of care, and yet languishes unloved on store shelves—a Sleeping Beauty with no Prince Charming to confer his consummating kiss.

Back in the mid '90s, black nail polish was being worn by Goths and club kids, subcultures of unimpeachable edginess. Dominique Szabo remembers noticing it on design students during one of her scouting trips to Première Vision. Having been in the business long enough to know a nascent trend when she saw one, Dominique decided to do a color story for Estée Lauder that included black nail polish. Remembering, Dominique's face takes on the expression Cassandra's must have had when the Greeks emerged from the Trojan horse to sack the city. As she wistfully recalls: “That was innovative. That was different.” That also didn't sell.

At around the same time, a makeup artist at Chanel used black marker on the models' nails for some preshow publicity photos. When it came time for the actual show, she mixed a batch of almost-black polish and put it on all forty-five models. Since this was taking place at the scorching point of runway red-hotness, backstage was crawling with photographers and beauty editors looking for a story to report. Rich girls in screw-you Goth nail polish gave it to them.

Playing to the publicity windfall, Chanel swiftly added “Vamp,” an almost-black nail polish, to its line. Vamp wasn't radically unlike the Lauder polish, except in provenance. Everyone wanted the Chanel version of the story, including Madonna. Uma Thurman wore it in Pulp Fiction, the hipster hit of the year. In Style featured it in one of the magazine's first issues. At $15 a bottle—triple the price of most polish—stores had to ration the stuff. The waiting list was more than a thousand women long.

Vamp became unobtainable, which made it all the more desirable. During that first year, Chanel sold about $1 million's worth. Not bad for a brand that was only in five hundred stores and a product that was almost always out of stock. Five weeks after “Vamp,” Revlon launched a lookalike called “Vixen.” Within months, Chanel spun off a Vamp lipstick, followed by “Very Vamp”and “Metallic Vamp.” Dominique found herself doing a color story with a lookalike called “Mood Indigo.”

For years afterward, women wanted only unusual colors. Young men started wearing strange nail polishes because they thought it made them look like rock stars. Entire businesses were built on the craze for odd, overpriced polish. In 1995, when the Vamp fad was in full swing, Cisco Systems co-founder Sandy Lerner forswore Silicon Valley for the beauty biz. Launching a company called Urban Decay, she went Goth one better with shades like “Roach,” “Smog,” and “Mildew.” The company (slogan: “Does pink make you puke?”) sold $6-$9 million its first year.

That same year, U.S.C. student Dineh Mohajer dumped food coloring in white nail polish to turn it baby blue. Everybody raved. So Dineh borrowed $50,000 from mom and dad and started a business called Hard Candy. Pricing bottles at an exorbitant $18, she offered shades called “Hick” and “Trailer Trash.” Within a year, she sold $10 million.

The next year, Revlon jumped in with both feet, launching an entire line of eccentric shades called Street Wear. Urban Decay's founder was incensed, claiming that Revlon copied her idea. Nobody made much mention of Chanel; their backstage improvisation was already ancient history.

Meanwhile, Chanel's makeup artists had moved on. Manicures could not have been more traditional. At one show, nails were painted bright shades that Mademoiselle's own clients might have worn. At the next, nails were pale. They were anything but Vamp. Everybody was catching on to the rich-girl Goth thing. And if the whole world already wants your product, there's no point in putting it on the runway.