Eyes wide open

Dior Lady Art’s fifth edition brings together 10 different artists and collectives from across the globe to build their own Lady Dior, including Bharti Kher and her signature bindi motif.

- Isheta Salgaocar

Considered by many to be the original It bag, the Lady Dior gained iconic status a few years ago when Maria Grazia Chiuri invited artists from across the world to put their individual stamps on the classic design. It became a masterpiece: wearable art that could be passed on from generation to generation.

The handbag, which was created in 1995, got its title from Princess Diana, who was often papped with it on her arm. Diana, incidentally, was presented the bag by the then-first lady of France, Bernadette Chirac, during the opening of an exhibition by Paul Cézanne at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Fast forward 25 years later and the Lady Dior is being reinterpreted by contemporary practitioners across the world, becoming travelling exhibitions in itself and inviting important conversations on the coming together of art and fashion.

2020 sees British-Indian artist Bharti Kher’s contribution come alive. Kher’s work, which encompasses painting, installations and sculpture, draws on her roots in Britain, where she was raised and India, which she made her home and where she continues to work. Kher has pushed boundaries throughout her practice, constantly exploring the idea of narratives and questioning the nature of things as they exist. The bindi worn in India as an adornment customarily symbolising marriage as well as the third eye is one of her signature motifs, and in her rendition of the handbag, Kher marries it with the Lady Dior.

Isheta Salgaocar: Would you say that artists have historically provoked and pushed the boundaries of fashion, inspired fashion, as with Salvador Dalí and Elsa Schiaparelli and the Lobster dress in the 1930s?