Celebrity Style
Bernadette Chirac presented Princess Diana with a special gift — a square-shaped Christian Dior top handle bag adorned with the Maison’s Cannage pattern in September 1995. The bag was so exclusive it wasn't on the market.
Then Dior artistic director Gianfranco Ferré designed the top handle bag, previously named the Chouchou (“favorite” in French). After Diana ordered a few more, the house renamed it the Lady Dior in 1996, and the name stuck.
Originally released in 1991, it would become Lady Di’s go-to handbags. The paparazzi couldn’t wait to snap photos of the princess leaving Harbour Gym in London in biker shorts and collegiate sweatshirts with the Gucci bag that would go on to be an iconic Diana look.
The bag would go bear her name, and in 2021 Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele looked to the Gucci archive for inspiration and reissued the Gucci Diana.
Karl Lagerfeld released the Chanel flap bag that would come to be known as the Chanel Diana in 1989. The house sold it through the mid ‘90s. Princess Diana wore it regularly, so Lagerfeld found it fitting to rename the bag “Diana.” The house rereleased it for Spring 2015.
Salvatore Ferragamo created a bag in 1990 for Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales. She loved it so much that some reports say she owned it in 20 colors. The Italian fashion house reissued the Lady Di bag, now named the Diana Clutch in recent years.
Despite nearly 25 hours since Princess Diana tragically passed away in 1997, her style legacy continues.