“You can wear the same suit from morning to dinner, but to be really perfectly dressed, you cannot keep the same bag. For morning, it must be very simple, and for the evening, it must be smaller and, if you wish, a little fancier.”
These are the words of fashion designer Christian Dior. Passionate of style, opulence and luxury craftsmanship, Dior built an empire on joie de vivre and the idea of a Dior silhouette rather than Dior clothes and accessories. At the end of the Second World War, he offered women a new chance at being radiant and generously ornamented with great taste and playful accessories.
With his huge New Look dresses, his tailleurs and all the great piece of clothing he put into his collections, he inspired generations of designers from Saint Laurent to Jean-Paul Gaultier to Ralph Simmons.
The new bold and adventurous Dior romantic Amazon needed bags that would suit her new life. They would have to be as practical when walking the streets for women’s rights as they would be organising a picnic with friends at the country side or running errands in between work meetings.
Quite logically, some backpacks then popped into Dior’s collections recently, all bearing the mark of their luxury heritage and carrying some either uber feminine or quite unisex vibe that is really just what we, women, always have dreamt for in a backpack. Style and practicality sewed together into high fashion accessories, what more can you ask for?
Dior’s micro Saddle backpack: the sexy androgynous urban Amazon’s backpack
A backpack can be boring. A backpack designed by Dior’s accessories department can never be, and the best backpack they might have ever designed lays in the shape of the Dior’s Micro Saddle bag.
Inspired by the shape of the Saddle bag handbag designed by John Galliano during his time as head of women’s collections in the 2000s, the Micro Saddle bag backpackgained a lot more in modernity with its raw look, neat cut lines and very graphic overall design. Made for the city and the urban silhouettes, it can adapt just as well in the wilderness thanks to its lightweight and heavy style.
Originally designed for the men’s collection, the Micro Saddle backpack gained in androgynousness and geometry with this recent revisitation. Black all over, the Micro Saddle possesses one saddle-shaped pocket on the front and saddle-shaped a flip top that buckles up thanks to a very sportswear clasp on the front.
Made of plain or satined nylon, its canvas is resistant and easily washable. The other originality of this Micro Saddle is the one adjustable shoulder strap: you can wear it in your back without having two straps weighing to much on your shoulders and so gain in agility.
As you get older you really don’t see a backpack becoming your daily handbag. With the Dior Micro Saddle backpack, you find yourself actually compelled into making this one your forever go-to.
Easy to match with your wardrobe, this tiny sporty backpack is a dream come true for all busy and trendy women. With its graphic lines and clever design, this backpack is as easy to wear as it is easy to live with as a practical accessory. Really fancy and yet really raw and useful, this Micro Saddle will have you think twice about ditching your handbag for this backpack.
Dior’s embroidered backpack: the old school vintage backpack
If I have kids, I don’t know about you, but I am sure that there will be one kids item that I would rush on and get them for them to be the cutest: a vintage retro school backpack.
But I am not really having kids in any foreseeable future and so I had to find one for myself, since it is so damn pretty… and Dior just issued the perfect pupil’s backpack, with a luxury take on it that is simply to die for. Ready to fall in love? Because there is just one phrase to describe the Dior embroidered backpack: “need!!”.
Made in the embroidered new “Oblique” Ds canvas over-used (to our great pleasure) by Maria Grazia Chiuri recently, this backpack has a very retro-Dior touch. The flap carries a giant bold letters “Christian Dior Paris” signature and is buckled on the core of the bag thanks to two canvas straps and silver-coloured hardware that was a but tarnished for a more vintage look. The adjustable shoulder straps can be moved for you to chose how you want to carry your bag (on one or two shoulders).
Easy to wear yet eye-catching and style-defining, the Dior embroidered backpack is a piece of accessory that has rather the look of a silhouette masterpiece with its unapologetic nostalgic vibe.
Whether you want a bag for your travels or need a working-place ok and spacious bag for all your files and your computer, the Dior embroidered backpack comes at your rescue with its trendy and practical design, made never to let you down. No outfit will resist the charming look of this backpack which should be seen rather like your silhouette’s impacting piece rather than a mere accessory.
Dior’s Hiking backpack: when sportswear meets high fashion
I will be quick on this particular Dior backpack. Sporty, raw, padded or made of plain canvas, this Hiking bag is really a versatile and practical piece of ingeniously sewed together luxury fabrics.
Functional and sporty, you might not wear it at your best friend’s wedding but you sure will enjoy its daily usefulness and radical graphic lines. Very masculine and really made for busy days, the Hiking backpack is an essential accessory.
You might think look doesn’t matter with sportswear items but Dior doesn’t. This Hiking bag is really a cool creation that has nothing to see with usual ugly hiking bags.
Here, a very resistant nylon, two handles, two adjustable straps and many zips make the practicality of the bag when the hardware details and many saddle-shaped pockets give the luxury touch that is needed. A hip strap also is available if you actually intend to go hiking with your Dior Hiking or if you just want an adventurer’s look.
Made for the city but really not for formal occasions, this Hiking backpack will fit all your needs on a daily basis… except maybe that of sophistication. Don’t get me wrong: Hiking is a sophisticated backpack but you might have to step back from it if you are a rather Lady Dior woman than a Dior Amazon kind of girl.
Dior’s Oblique backpack: the one that will remind you your teenage years
Even if we soon ditched it after school and definitely never really wanted to go back to it as we grew older, the teenage years high school backpack is, for every person, a dear a sweet childhood memory.
Resistant, practical, in a wide range of colours, that very backpack was yet another token of childhood that one can be sometimes nostalgic about. Dior got that, and offers us now a luxury and high-end fashion version of this backpack for all women and men to be able to get back to that kind of backpack without fearing backlash or any fashion faux-pas.
The Dior Oblique backpack is as simple as can be: a round top with a zip, a zipped pocket on the front of the bag in the middle, a handle at the top and two padded adjustable shoulder straps.
The luxury touch lays in the details with, first and foremost, the iconic embroidered Oblique Dior canvas and the very modern, contrasting silver-coloured hardware. Available in two colours – Oblique is ecru, blue, grey and Oblique Rider is black and grey – the Oblique backpack is a must-have of easy-going style and practicality.
You will probably not wear this backpack with an evening gown, but otherwise all looks suit this very easy to wear backpack. For more fun and nostalgia, pick the blue and ecru version, for more radical fashion, pick the black and grey model that would fit in more at your workplace and maybe match with more of your outfits if you are not a great fan of colourful #ootd.
This school backpack is really the most unisex and trendy backpack at Dior, and, if you will, you can even share it with your lover and kids when needed since it is so versatile.
Dior’s legacy even flows in the backpacks
Christian Dior’s legacy is very much still in the French brand’s DNA. Today, with designers Maria Grazia Chiuri as the women’s collections head of creation, Dior is taking an even brighter turn into modernity: with a woman at the wheel, the brand became more engaged for womanhood and women’s rights as well as it evolved into something just as dreamy but also more grounded.
Christian Dior wanted women and nature to thrive and rule over the world, he did it, and then Maria Grazia Chiuri pushed it even further for 2020 with her backpacks!
