Artists around the world reimagine the iconic Lady Dior

In the world of fleeting trends, it takes profound flair to converge artistic and cultural values and gain icon status. Revered for blending timeless elegance with modernistic expressions from the House of Dior, the Lady Dior bag continues to be reinvented to this day. Regarded as an iconic object of desire, it carries an exceptional legacy with refined designs highlighting Dior’s eternal codes, the excellence of its ateliers, and celebrated savoir-faire. Since its creation a decade ago, the Dior Lady Art Project has expanded into a canvas of incredible artistic possibilities where singular means of expression presents innovative and poetic reinterpretations.

This year, Dior celebrates 10 years of artistic collaborations with this initiative and turns to artists from around the world to embrace the legend and showcase the prisms of their own realms. The anniversary edition brings together ten leading international personalities who transform the Lady Dior bag with memories of landscapes, the beauty of emotions, or the invisible forces that connect us. Each bag tells a unique story that celebrates art, fashion, cultures, and life through a gamut of textures and colours.

Kuwaiti visual artist Alymamah Rashed addresses themes of identity, climate, and nature through the complex history of her body. She seeks inspiration by allowing natural environments and beings to nourish her work.“Sometimes a seashell washed up on the shore can sing a melody for me, and other times it’s a leaf I found out of hundreds on the mountain trail.”Rashed interprets the Lady Dior bag as a sculptural piece and creates a unique dialogue between“objecthood” and the“personal”, engendering an intimate connection between the creator and the carrier.“I view it as an object that holds a story, and you’re then able to enter into that story by placing your belongings into it.”

For the tenth edition of Dior Lady Art, she intimately expresses the natural habitat of the Failaka Island in Kuwait by sensually referencing the textures found on the seashores.“I wanted to create the figure as a pearl in an oyster through a sheer fabric, but to bind it through beadwork that grounded its sensuality. The beadwork mimics the texture of the sand, the beach rock, and sea barnacles seen on Failaka’s shores.”Additionally, in the second iteration, the artist presents the native spring flower of Kuwait, the humaith, across the bag to let its presence be passed on eternally.“The figure is rooted in this ephemeral flower, to honour its remembrance and its quiet presence on the sidewalks and highways of Kuwait. You see the petals in fabric,3D printed, and beaded to evoke its dynamic nature.” Rashed’s expression of her references and figures in the tactile contrasts of softness and heaviness evokes a natural dualism in femininity and masculinity found within human beings.

“It was an absolute honour to begin this collaboration because it made my stories, references, and spirit swim beyond their natural birth point. My figures flew to new territories and placed themselves in a transportable object that can be carried within one’s everyday. The narrative became not only mine, but ours,” shares Rashed. Patrick Eugène, a Haitian-American painter, is known for his large-scale compositions connecting African diasporic history from the Caribbean to North America. He explores storytelling, identity, and cultural memory through bold forms, rich colours, and a strong sense of movement. His evocative paintings highlight the human experience, particularly the resilience and beauty of African people.“My Haitian heritage is at the heart of everything I create. I’m inspired by the past, both personal and ancestral, the resilience of Haitians, and the ways culture is preserved and reinterpreted across generations. Women play a central role in my paintings, many of whom wear pearls around their necks. Haiti’s historical title as the ‘pearl of the Antilles’ speaks of its natural beauty and cultural richness.” This concept ties beautifully into the elegance and luxury of pearls, an element often used in fashion design, particularly by Dior. Both Haiti and Dior symbolise resilience, creativity, and timeless aesthetic appeal; “that parallel is something I wanted to explore in this collaboration,” shares Eugène.

The Lady Dior bag is nothing short of iconic for the artist. From its structure, craftsmanship, to the way it straddles history with modernity—it’s more than a bag.“Lady Dior is a complex canvas, both physically and conceptually. In my reinterpretation, the reference to Haiti highlights a complex history of exploitation and wealth generation. It provides a powerful backdrop for my practice.” He connects his artworks to the House of Dior’s use of pearls to underscore themes of luxury and the contrast between beauty and the painful history of colonisation.“I saw this as an opportunity to use pearls as a symbol of resilience and reclamation.” Eugène combined traditional materials like raffia and gold with leather and pearls to create three bags for Dior Lady Art. Raffia speaks of Haitian craftsmanship and cultural heritage. Gold adds timeless elegance. Pearls create a visual link between his paintings, Haiti’s story, and Dior’s legacy.

The respect for creativity and heritage makes this partnership feel genuine and inspired for Eugène. Sharing his experience, he elaborates,“It has allowed me to expand the definition of art—it doesn’t have to be confined to gallery walls. It can move, it can be worn, it can engage with everyday life. Dior Lady Art celebrates that idea. It’s a reminder that art lives wherever we choose to carry it.”

Joining Rashed and Eugène, Jessica Cannon, Eva Jospin, Ju Ting, Lakwena, Lee Ufan, Sophia Loeb, Inès Longevial, and Marc Quinn present a plurality of perspectives to create culturally resonant dialogues for Dior Lady Art Project.

Lead image (l-r): The bag reimagined by Alymamah Rashed, The Lady Dior Bag reimagined by Eugène

Photographs by Mateusz Stefanowski

This article first appeared in the October 2025 print edition of Harper's Bazaar India.
 

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