Fresh on the tail of her Black Swan costar and longtime Dior spokesperson Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis has been tapped to front the Christian Dior Spring 2012 ad campaign. Her first set of shots for the company features a group of products that is very relevant to our interests – handbags!

More specifically, these three shots include the Miss Dior handbag line in Mila’s lovely grasp, which has long been my favorite of Dior’s classic accessories collections. In particular, I adore the snakeskin version featured in one of the additional shots that we have after the jump. Do you like Mila as a model?

Women’s Wear Daily has announced that Christian Dior will team up with Berlin contemporary art star Anselm Reyle for a line of accessories, handbags and makeup just in time for Miami’s Art Basel. I’m pretty sure that it cost me a hundred bucks just to write that sentence. In all seriousness, though, perhaps Reyle’s thoroughly modern take on these bags and small leather goods is an indication that LVMH is done being so precious with the Dior aesthetic?

I’ve moaned about how stagnant Dior’s handbags are a few times in the past, and it sees as though most of you agree that the company could stand to go in a new direction and try something more modern. Dior is a huge, venerable brand, after all, and ignoring the opportunity cash in on that history via lustworthy handbags is not a very LVMH thing to do. Dior could be selling purses hand over fist, but for the past half a decade or so, the powers that be have more or less completely declined the opportunity.

This artist collaboration, the first of its kind for Dior, feels like a step in the right direction for a brand that hasn’t attempted to make any kind of serious handbag statement since the gaucho bags in the mid-2000s. You don’t have to look beyond the bounds of LVMH to see what pop art can do to invigorate a handbag line – Haruki Murakami and Stephen Sprouse for Louis Vuitton, anyone?

Even more than that, though, Louis Vuitton has grown so much under the guidance of Marc Jacobs because he’s been willing and able to burn a portion of the company’s heritage to the ground and build it anew. He dispensed with the stuffiness but left the iconic visuals of the brand intact, and Dior would be well advised to attempt to follow suit. Based on the gold metallic and matte versions of the Lady Dior with skewed cannage quilting, LVMH may be ready to take the necessary steps.

The bags will debut at an Art Basel pop-up shop in early December, and then ship to select Dior boutiques worldwide in January. Prices will start at around $270 for one of the pictured bracelets and head up to about $4000 for a metallic Lady Dior bag, based on current exchange rates.

Excuse me while I echo the sentiments about the Dior Spring 2012 collection that have already been expressed by everyone else in the fashion industry: It’s kind of a placeholder, yes? Months have passed and Dior still doesn’t have a replacement for John Galliano, so the collection is being designed by what the French call “le studio.” Bill Gaytten, long Galliano’s right-hand man, has taken the reins, along with the rest of the Dior creative team.

The clothes and handbags that they created are serviceable, but not surprising or innovative. The purses are all shapes that we’ve seen before from Dior, but in varied fabrications and colors, much like the clothes were. Dior seems set on making pieces that will retail reasonably well until LVMH can find a real creative voice to lead the brand, and the intention is written all over this collection.

The Lady Dior bag with clear beads will remind a lot of people of Prada’s stellar Spring 2010 accessories collection, and there are certainly worse steps in which to follow while the brand finds its new direction. The rest of what we see so far is solid, functional and colorful in a way that will likely make it move off store shelves very quickly; the bags feel very of-the-moment, which is something that’s been largely missing from Dior accessories for some time. Several more pictures after the jump.

Images via Women’s Wear Daily.

But when John Galliano, Dior’s top creative mind and one of the richest designers in the world, was hauled to jail for an anti-Semitic attack on a couple at a Paris café, the fashion world was too shocked to let it slide. When a video of a second verbal attack emerged, in the grand French tradition, it was off with Galliano’s head. With Galliano’s Spring 2011 Dior collection just hitting stores and Fall 2011 to come later in the year, that puts fashion lovers in an odd spot: If you love the work but disapprove of the man behind it, do you still buy the bags?

It’s impossible to know what the exact stipulations of John Galliano’s PPR contract were, but most high-dollar employment agreements in any industry include some sort of clause that relieves the employer of having to pay any sort of contract buyout or separation fee if the employee acts in a way that seriously jeopardizes the company’s public image or reputation. Galliano’s actions are almost certainly an example of something that would fall into that category. So if we’re working under the assumption that Galliano has received his last paycheck for his work at Dior and further purchases from the brand will not benefit him financially in any way, does that affect your opinion?

Or perhaps the problem is more of a moral one. Does the support of a man’s work indicate support of the man himself when everyone knows what kind of man he is, even if there’s no direct financial correlation? I find myself vacillating between the two options. Dior Spring 2011 and bags like the Dior Lady Dior Tie-Dye Tote are some of the brand’s best accessories work since the heyday of the Dior Saddle Bag, and Dior’s corporate team did the right thing by immediately terminating Galliano upon release of the damning video evidence. And in the fashion industry, head designers of huge labels aren’t usually the people who design and develop the accessories.

But still, whenever I see a Dior piece these days, I feel a little twinge. That gut reaction may not be fair, but gut-level responses are never predicated on a fair and nuanced evaluation of the situation at hand. It might just be enough to keep my from buying one of Dior’s bags until a new creative director’s work debuts, though. Will it stop you? If not, you can buy this Lady Dior through Neiman Marcus for $3100.

It’s been an upsetting and sad week at the Christian Dior offices. Creative director John Galliano was arrested at a French café on a variety of charges including anti-Semitism, which saw him swiftly suspended from his duties at Dior. Once video emerged of a second public neo-Nazi tirade, his ouster from the brand was just as decisive. Galliano’s Christian Dior Fall 2011 collection became an awkward and impromptu swan song, and the dark, moody lighting that might have looked cool under different circumstances just looked somber at the Rodin Museum in Paris.

Galliano likely had little to do with the collection’s handbags, though, and that’s what we’re here to discuss. At a house as big as Dior, accessories and shoes are largely handled by a separate department, and although the head designer has creative input into their development, they’re the work product of a set of people who toil largely in obscurity. And that’s what this Dior show did exceptionally well – at the end, the brand honored the people behind the scenes whose livelihoods and careers were thrown into tumult by Galliano’s cowardly words. If this set of lovely, luxurious bag is any indication, they were doing excellent work under a very troubled man.

Photos via Vogue.com.

The Dior Cannage Tote was first introduced as a Resort 2011 piece, but with Bergdorf’s pre-orders expected to arrive in April, that seems to indicate that it will be part of the Spring 2011 non-runway collection as well. (Or maybe instead? Has anyone seen earlier-arriving orders for this bag?)

Whichever collection this bag may technically reside within doesn’t actually make a lick of difference in its wearability or functionality, both of which this bag has in spades. But it also has something else which has been missing from Dior over the past few seasons – easiness, suppleness, and the ability to be used as an everyday bag by women spanning a wide range of ages and life experiences. Perhaps only Dior’s Granville tote has similar achievements in those areas in the recent past, and that bag became so popular with celebrities that I got quite tired of writing about it over at BagThatStyle. Here’s hoping that Dior has the same success with this tote. Buy through Bergdorf Goodman for $2600.

Spring 2011′s bags mark a return to exuberance and spirit that had been lacking lately, and Galliano managed to put even the unchanged leather Lady Dior bags in a new context with this florid, tropical collection. The multicolored fringe crossbodies likely won’t be a huge hit with Dior’s traditional customers, but the look found its sweet spot in colorful, perspective-changing takes on old favorites like the Dior 3D and the aforementioned Lady Diors. If this collection serves as any sort of indication of the future, bag lovers have much to anticipate.

Photos via Style.com.

The Dior Libertine Fur Hobo, though, is pretty awful. Not only is it pink, but it needs a good conditioning treatment and a blowout something fierce. Much like the Lanvin pumps I posted about recently on TalkShoes, I feel like I shouldn’t have to pay such an exorbitant amount of money for a bag that needs a salon appointment.

Not that the bag would have been any more attractive with a different kind of fur – it likely wouldn’t have been. Fur, as we’ve discussed before, is inherently a difficult material with which to create shape or structure, which really ignores the entire design purpose of bags to begin with. Almost every fur bag I’ve ever seen has been a hairy, messy, overpriced blob, which doesn’t even begin to touch the ethical issues that are involved in making such atrocious purses. If you love fur, stay away from the bags and stick to coats or vests. Better yet, invest in a few fun faux pieces – at least they won’t break the bank as much as this puffy, pink bag blasphemy will. Buy through Neiman Marcus for $4600.

Perhaps it’s a result of the collection’s clear inspiration, but these completely gorgeous, pitch-perfect flower-themed dresses won’t be leaving my head any time soon. The collection is exuberant, vibrant and bold while still maintaining an obvious femininity and softness, which is a combination of characteristics that makes for utterly modern romantic dressing. Haute couture may be out of reach for nearly everyone, but here’s hoping that this aesthetic filters down the fashion ranks for the rest of us very quickly. The best looks, after the jump.

Images via Style.com.