Dior Fetes Dior Lady Art with Art Basel Miami Party

The Dior Lady Art range of bags premiered at the brand's boutique in Miami Design District.
The Dior Lady Art range of bags premiered at the brand’s boutique in Miami Design District.

On November 29, heating up Miami for this week’s Art Basel, Dior threw a neon-pink cocktail party to mark the unveiling of Dior Lady Art.

Held in the brand’s boutique on 39th Street in Miami Design District and DJ-ed by Pascal Moscheni, the event gathered Dior-garbed socialites and creatives – Petra Nemcova, Derek Blasberg and James Goldstein to name but a few – to revel for the first time the fruits of the Dior Lady Art project.

Dior Lady Art purses.
Dior Lady Art purses.

Over the past several months, Dior has granted seven contemporary American and British artists a carte blanche to reinterpret the iconic Lady Dior purse. The resultant limited-edition novelties speak of the disparate creative methods and visions of Brits Ian Davenport, Jason Martin, Marc Quinn and Mat Collishaw and Americans Daniel Gordon, Matthew Porter and Chris Martin.

Quinn’s creations invite stares with their wide, cerulean eye irises, while Chris Martin’s bags leap out with leafy jungle motifs (a goggly frog included). Davenport and Jason Martin have both cast their works in metallic hues – the latter drawing his famed thick oil-paint-like columns and the former scrunching up ruffles of transfixing monochromes. Gordon and Collishaw seem to have found inspiration in bright animal prints, whereas Porter has opted for highly geometric, somewhat surreal designs (think of his signature flying-car image).

Creations by (top, from left to right): Marc Quinn, Daniel Gordon, Mat Collishaw, Jason Martin; (bottom, from left to right) Matthew Porter, Ian Davenport and Chris Martin.
Creations by (top, from left to right): Marc Quinn, Daniel Gordon, Mat Collishaw, Jason Martin; (bottom, from left to right) Matthew Porter, Ian Davenport and Chris Martin.

Bearing price tags in the range of $5,000 – $12,000, the bags – as well as tinier thematic accessories – will be exclusively available at Dior’s Miami store during Art Basel Miami (December 1 – 4). In December, the line will grace a pop-up boutique in Los Angeles and also travel to South Korea, London, China, Paris and Dubai.