Haute TOTES

Gathering a constellation of art stars and letting their imaginations take flight, Dior's Lady Art project reimagines one of the maison's most iconic designs.

- HARRY ROBERTS

The worlds of art and fashion have always aligned in Christian Dior's creative universe. Before launching his legendary house with the New Look of 1947, Monsieur Dior spent his early career among the glittering artistic milieu of interwar Paris, exhibiting work by Picasso, Dalí and other avant-garde luminaries at the gallery he co-directed in the city's 8th arrondissement. Throughout his life the couturier remained a dedicated patron, collaborator and close friend of many artists. And by channelling the painterly principles of colour and line with his voluptuously sculpted silhouettes, he forged a legacy that brought fashion firmly into the realm of artistic flourish and fantasy.

This affinity for art has given creative licence to many of Dior's successors at the house, inspiring sartorial excursions to art's cutting edge that have kept his original passion alive - from the fantasias that paraded the runway during John Galliano's tenure to Raf Simons' collaborations with Sterling Ruby. Today the Dior archive regularly tours the world's top art museums and is permanently exhibited alongside dazzling contemporary art commissions at the recently reimagined flagship, 30 Montaigne.

But Dior's most exciting adventure in the contemporary art world has been its Dior Lady Art project, which began in 2016 and has just unveiled its seventh iteration. The brainchild of current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri - a champion of feminist art practice and a designer whose work at Dior has often centred around art and fashion's symbiosis - the project invites leading artists from around the world to transform the Lady Dior bag, treating one of the maison's most iconic pieces as a canvas for their artistic expression.