The Lady Dior is a striking piece of art, with its architectural design, metallic charms spelling the name Dior and Cannage motif inspired by the Napoleon III chairs (on which Christian Dior seated the guests at the shows). The Lady Dior bag was created in 1995; it is an expression of the contemporary refinement of the house, and lends itself to a wealth of interpretations and artistic appropriations.
For the opening of the house of Dior in London, this past June, and for Dior Lady art project, the house invited the London-based sculptor, designer and painter Marc Quinn to deliver his vision of the iconic bag and small leather accessories in a limited edition, available exclusively in the boutique.
Today, the story continues with six new British and American artists who unveil their creations in the Miami boutique, an LA pop-up store, as well as in Korea, London, China, Dubai and Paris. In undertaking this collaboration, the house has pushed the limits of its savoir-faire in order to respond to the artists’ requirements. The project gives carte blanche to artist who have transposed their own creative universes into the Dior leather working language.
Here are the artists:
JASON MARTIN
Martin produces monumental monochrome paintings that resemble sculptures, in which he explores texture, brilliance and the accumulation of pigments in order to suggest movement. For the house, he created curves on the Lady Dior and the evening clutches, up to two centimetres in height at certain points, which were produced according to a special technique that gives the leather a unique and sensual undulation. On evening clutches, Martin has placed hundreds of matt and shiny sequins on evening clutches, creating relief and playing with light and tactility.
IAN DAVENPORT
Davenport uses paint applied vertically with the aid of syringes on aluminium or stainless steel panel. These colourful vertical stripes end up melding together and giving rise to new shades, with an effect of free and spontaneous movement. For Dior, the artist has chosen a sequence of lines from a series of paintings titled ‘Colourfall’, which he has reproduced and adapted directly into the silvered leather of the Lady Dior, as well as clutches and phone cases. He was also inspired by a paint-spattered area of floor in his London studio, which he developed as the print on a scarf, before using it as a lining for the bags. On another collection of the iconic bag and associated small leather accessories, the lines of coloured paint are broken up by the house’s emblematic motif, creating brilliant waves and unique volumes.
MAT COLLISHAW
An artist whose output embraces photography, installations and video. Collishaw opens a window on nature, but always as a detail. His highly visual universe is marked by themes such as life and sexuality. For Dior, he drew inspiration from one of his major works to create a very high-definition print on the glazed leather of the Lady Dior bags and clutches and on the silk scarf. Two butterflies, the first sunny yellow and the second lunar blue, with wings of an almost realistic velvety texture, sit on the black velvet-wrapped charms that spell out the Dior name. The bag and clutch linings, in contrast are in bright shades of yellow or blue.
MARC QUINN
The London-based contemporary artist Marc Quinn looked to his own emblematic still life oil paintings. He has produced models with a floral print drawn from his personal work on one side, and on the other side the same motif with the colours reversed. Violet, white or black orchids bloom against a backdrop of sand or volcanic earth, creating a captivating artificial atmosphere. The artist also offers a Lady Dior in silvered leather decorated with flower petals worked in relief. Inspired by fresh flowers photographed in the studio, Marc Quinn assembles the flora in original locations to pique curiosity. On another model, the bright blue iris of an eye proves attention-grabbing and captivating. He has also designed clutches and wallets matching the Lady Dior bags to complete this limited-edition collection.
MATTHEW PORTER
Brooklyn-based photographer, Matthew Porter likes to work with light as it appears at different moments of the day. He has spent a long time roaming the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles to immortalise the sunrises and sunsets, and to capture the shadows that naturally delineate the city. From these photographs he has produced montages by adding shrunken models of cars to create an effect of mid-air suspension. For Dior, he reproduced one of these scenes on the side of the Lady Dior, on the clutches and on bracelets. Using the technique of marquetry, the elements are assembled one by one to compose an image in glazed calfskin with suede details. For the bag’s other side he was inspired by automobiles and the art of camouflage to create a graphic black and white motif. As a compliment to the charms he also designed a red car, which is also available as a key ring.
DANIEL GORDON
Gordon likes working with colour and the art of combining and mixing it. He creates compositions by making collages and creating prints from them. For the house, he reinterpreted the iconic Cannage motif by redrawing its graphic lines to make them more spontaneous, almost naive. The Lady Dior bags and evening clutches are in black and white mink, and all the pieces of fur were put together one by one, by hand, using the inlay technique. In order to inject these creations with a dose of colour, he revisited the charms that spell out the Dior name and added brightly-hued leather discs of different sizes and motifs.
CHRIS MARTIN
Based in Brooklyn, this artist’s work explores depth, form and colour. For his collaboration with Dior, he took the drawing of a frog from one of his major works, titled frog 1, and adapted it to create a print employed on a Lady Dior small, as well as a series of small leather goods and accessories, such as a card holder and a scarf. His work is also characterised by the theme of abstraction, which he has illustrated through two other series of Lady Dior, along with clutches, scarves and stoles. He utilised part of his work chameleon, composed of abstract lines of sequins that he adapted for the Dior creations. He also took inspiration from his work ‘Paleocene Sunset’, its inserts of historical figures like hidden scenes waiting to be discovered.
The pieces will be exclusively available at the Dior boutique at Mall of the Emirates, from December 8. It will be the only boutique that will be receiving the pieces in the region.
