From the Lady Dior to the Saddle Bag, a History of Dior Handbags

But the cult of Dior handbags as we know it now—the Lady Bag, the Saddle Bag, the Book Tote—should really be traced to Marc Bohan, the second designer to take the helm of the fashion house following Monsieur Dior’s untimely death from a heart attack in 1957. (One Yves Saint Laurent was next in the line of succession, after which Bohan arrived in late 1960.) In 1967, Bohan drummed up the Oblique monogram, in which the four letters of Dior appear tossed together at an italic tilt and then stacked upon each other over and over until they form a diagonal line. It was two years before the world first saw it; look 42 from the printemps 1969 collection featured a positively modish model wearing a wooly coat, bug-eyed specs, and a boxy shoulder bag bearing the would-be iconic monogram. Since then, John Galliano has splashed the Oblique all over everything from itty bitty bikinis to his signature giddy-up Saddle Bags, and current Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri has applied it liberally to handbags of all shapes and sizes. And no Dior handbag history would be complete without the style made famous by the most regal of Miss Diors—a certain Princess Diana, for whom Dior named the Lady Dior bag.

Since the swish of the New Look skirt was heard around the world in 1947, the Dior maison has given us plenty to talk about. The most famous Dior handbags histories, below.