Lady Dior: the making of a design icon

An rare glimpse inside Dior's Florentine leather manufacture

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In 1994, the team at maison Dior chose its chouchou. A French term of endearment best translated as ‘favourite’, chouchou was also the name of a new Dior bag unveiled that year. When designing the bag, the team turned to Christian Dior’s own biography for inspiration. Design details and tweaks reveal aspects of Dior’s many superstitions and design predilections. A set of four metal letters spell the maison’s famous name in a nod to the talismanic charms (a gold star and a sprig of lily of the valley among them) that Monsieur carried in his pockets; materials including Nappa leather are top-stitched to achieve the brand’s emblematic Cannage motif quilting, its shape a tribute to the Napoleon III chairs Dior lined up to seat guests at his haute couture presentations.

Since he first had his palms read by a fortune- teller aged 14, Christian Dior believed in destiny, fate and signs; in a fairy-tale twist, Dior’s chouchou became the favourite of a visiting princess. When touching down in Paris in 1995 to visit the Grand Palais’ exhibition of Cézanne artworks, Princess Diana of Wales was presented with the bag by Bernadette Chirac, then the First Lady of France. It was a coup de foudre: upon her return to London, the princess ordered several versions of the accessory; one year later, it was rechristened Lady Dior.

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