PARIS — If a picture is worth a thousand words, each bag in the Dior Lady Art project tells a powerful story.
This year marks the eighth edition of the project, which involves leading artists customizing the French fashion house’s signature Lady Dior bag. In addition to producing highly collectible accessories, it has become a platform for self-expression spanning all cultures.
Dior tapped four U.S.-based artists for the project, to be pre-launched at its boutique in Miami’s Design District before Art Basel Miami Beach in December, ahead of a global rollout in January. In addition to regular collaborator Mickalene Thomas, the participants include Hilary Pecis, Jeffrey Gibson and Ludovic Nkoth.
They are joined by South Korean artists Ha Chong-Hyun and Lee Kun-Yong; Gilbert & George, Michaela Yearwood-Dan and Korean-Canadian Zadie Xa, who are all based in the U.K.; Xu Zhen from China; Japanese artist Mariko Mori, and Paris-based Romanian artist Mircea Cantor.
Nkoth, who was born in Cameroon and has lived in the U.S. since the age of 13, said the bag was an extension of his artistic practice, which centers on themes such as migration, family history and diasporic life.
“A project like this expands a conversation within my practice. It was a challenge to try to make a bag express the same themes that my work does,” he said in a question-and-answer provided by Dior.
The artist designed two bags that reinterpret the house’s trademark cannage pattern, one in black leather and the other in white. They are adorned with small golden metal masks and enamel shells, while the lining is printed with paintings from his “System” series.
“I wanted to take a bag that exists in a completely different world and bring it into my world. I attempted to recontextualize it using personal West African symbolism and motifs,” he explained.
“It’s a bag that embodies two, perhaps conflicting at times, histories. It’s special to be able to create such a complex dialogue with something like a fashion accessory,” he added.
For Gibson, whose work celebrates marginalized voices, the project represented freedom of expression. His two designs combine glass and plastic beads, neoprene, sports mesh and chunky rhinestones.
“This new Lady Dior symbolizes me and all of my background story,” said the multimedia artist, who fuses traditional Native American craftsmanship with an almost psychedelic pop aesthetic.
“I can do whatever I choose” spell out the beads on one of the bags, inspired by the adorned punching bags that are his best-known works.
“Its brightly colored beadwork is drawn from my practice and historic Native American beadwork. The text on the one bag is about giving oneself permission to be themselves unabashedly in a world where we are all too often told who we are and how we should be,” Gibson said.
He praised the Dior design team for remaining faithful to his original vision.
“I have looked at fashion since I was a teenager. I am a big fan of DIY fashion, from punk to drag, any ways that people express themselves and have the confidence to stand out,” he noted.
Pecis delved into memories of playing with her grandmother’s jewelry box as a child. The Dior workshops reproduced the details of her design in three dimensions, with embroidered flowers set off by wavy gold metal handles and charms.
“I wanted the bag to be decorative, appealing to my inner child who loved all of my grandmother’s wonderfully sequined and beaded purses,” said the artist, who is known for dense, colorful paintings inspired by her native Los Angeles.
“The Dior Lady Art project is such an incredible opportunity for me to think outside the boundaries of the two-dimensional plane and with the use of other materials. And since my project was accepted, I have continued to think about the way materials play a part in my paintings,” Pecis said.
All in all, 31 bags will be launched for this edition. A handful have already been revealed at events in Seoul and Tokyo, and more will teased at the China International Import Expo and the “Art ‘N Dior” exhibition in Shanghai in November, the house said.
For the artists involved, it marks a unique opportunity to send their art out into the street.
“In a way this collaboration feels like I’m celebrating my practice. For example, you can’t walk around the city holding one of my paintings but you can walk around wearing my bag. It expands my reach,” Nkoth said.