Credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Michelle Obama's trendsetting DNC manicure was more than a year in the making. Celebrity manicurist Tom Bachik (his clients include Beyonce, Jessica Simpson, and Jennifer Lopez) created the color with Artistic Nail Design "a little more than a year ago," and said the process took a lot of trail and error.

"I was looking at what was popular and kind of where we were going in color," he told ABCNews.com at HBO's pre-Emmys Luxury Lounge, where he and his L'Oreal team polished the nails of Emmy nominees and guests. "At the time, the gray-beiges and taupey-beiges were getting really popular but a lot of my clients and their skin tones were more cool, more lavender. So I put a little purple in with the grayish beige to create that tone. It also has a little silver in it to give it some luminosity."

Bachik didn't know the first lady wore his color, Vogue, until days after her Sept. 4 speech, when the Wall Street Journal revealed the name of her nail polish.

"I was working, I missed the speech, and it wasn't until my friends told me 'Hey, Michelle's wearing your color,'" he said. "It looked gorgeous on her. She went with something more modern and on trend, and I think that's why everyone jumped on it and thought it was a great choice."

But if he could pick a color for her election day manicure, he'd go with something more traditional: a jewel toned red called The Queen's Might, part of L'Oreal's new collection with "Project Runway."

"It gives you that kind of classic feel," he said. "But at the same time, by being on trend, it shows that she's relating to what's happening now."