In September 1995, the late Princess Diana visited France. On this trip, Madame Bernadette Chirac, then the First Lady of France, gifted the royal a handbag from the house of Dior. A stylish carrier of diplomacy, literally, it represented the culture and savoir-faire of the French.
Designed by Gianfranco Ferre just the year before, the bag – originally called the Chouchou (“favourite” in French) – had yet to be released for commercial sale. It had a structured A-line silhouette (read: It’s not a bag that sags), and bore the signature Dior geometric Cannage (a motif that references the cane chairs in the house’s old couture salon) stitching on its supple lambskin. Accentuating its inimitable distinction: A set of D.I.O.R charms that dangled from its rounded top handles – a whimsical ode to the good-luck trinkets that Monsieur Dior (he was notably superstitious) use to carry with him.
The princess was gifted the little black handbag at the inauguration of the Paul Cezanne retrospective at the Grand Palais. She was later photographed with her Chouchou during a charity trip to Argentina in November that same year, and she also had another commissioned in navy to match her blue eyes.
The bag was added to the Dior stable of leather goods. In 1996, it was renamed the Lady Dior in honour of the princess, and it becomes a national treasure of sorts. Within just two years after its regal debut, the French couture house had sold 200,000 iterations of the bag, increasing the turnover of its leather goods by ten-fold.
Almost 30 years on, the Lady Dior has been given fresh updates by Dior’s current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri to keep it relevant, but it still firmly holds reign with many stylish celebrities and women who count on it to be a delightful and elegant companion on her arm.