Every girl should own some Chanel. So you’ll be delighted to discover that this season Peter Philips, Global Creative Director of Chanel make-up, has created wearable tattoos that don’t break the bank.

Referencing Coromandel folding screens that boomed in 17th century France, Philips has reinterpreted a technique for complex ancient lacquer application into these tattoos that cover the skin like master brush strokes.

So your body can become inviting like a bygone French boudoir by way of decorating your décolleté with pretty birds holding pearls and bouquets of wildflowers that wind up your calves.

The tattoos employ illusionary tactics otherwise known as Trompe L’oeil – an artistic tradition of depicting an image so exactly it appears real when it’s not. In art its viewed as both playful and intellectual.

And this can be seen here in beauty and fashion too – perhaps a way to mirror the industries as something like the continuing spin of gold thread and fantasy seen in the Emperors New Clothes. Forever immortalized in Vogue and tattooed onto our minds concerning they way most of us want to look.

Good to know we can get that Imperial look at a reasonable price today. Teaming with real clothes, however, is advised. Unlike folding screens and perspective painting, these will in reality leave little to the imagination.

Available from 1st March 2010  – although Lily Allen and Daisy Lowe already have theirs – in Chanel Boutiques and Selfridges W1 priced £49 for 55 individual tattoos.

Words: Erica Crompton