Dior Lady Art #2: ten artists give their take on the Dior handbag

Lady Dior by Spencer Sweeney

Dior first partnered with a cadre of British and American contemporary artists including YBA peer Ian Davenport last year. Issued as a limited edition run, the Dior Lady Art capsule collection proved a runaway success, prompting the Parisian maison to debut the project's sophomore collection this month, in time for Art Basel Miami. Dior Lady Art #2 sees ten international artists appropriate the luxury brand's couture-inspired Lady Dior handbag as canvas to exuberant effect.

Fine art has long been at the heart of Dior, a leitmotif that has continued from founder Christian Dior, who called many of his time's most influential artists friends and enjoyed a previous career as gallerist exhibiting the works of Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso, to current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri who namechecked Renaissance woman Niki de Saint Phalle (the French-American made her mark in film, sculpture and painting) as one of her muses for Spring / Summer 2018 and previously commissioned Claude Lalanne to create the jewellery for the house's Spring 2017 haute couture collection. For Dior Lady Art #2, the brand has partnered with ten artists from around the world, including Los Angeles based painter Friedrich Kunath, French artist Betty Mariani and Jamilla Okubo, a recent graduate of Parson's School of Design in Manhattan.

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While they all work with different media, for Dior the impressive grouping of artists all turned their eye to the brand's emblematic Lady Dior. First issued in 1995, the top-handle bag takes its cue from the maison's fabled couture ateliers with prestige detailing: there is the laborious Canage criss-cross stitching, mirrored facets and signature charms spelling the brand's name in gold or silver layered hardware. Silver also features in Lee Bul's dramatic rendition; the Seoul based artist and maker of immersive installations imagined a mirror shattering atop her medium sized bag. Requiring 60 attempts, the final product positions dozens of small Plexiglas mirrors at a slant. All around creative force Spencer Sweeney – in addition to artist, his job titles have included DJ, club-owner and musician – looked to process of making art for inspiration. His selection of bags in three sizes dazzle with likenesses of faces, eyes and several handprints; visible brushstrokes and raised pigments remind of art's tactile aspects.

Lady Dior by Friedrich Kunath

Lady Dior by Lee Bul