They say every great label lives in the shadow of its founder.
For the house of Christian Dior, who famously forwarded fashion’s new look of ultra-cinched waists and voluminous skirts – even going so far as to decree, “You can wear all the colorful and casual clothing that you like, but you must always be elegant” – one might take this to mean all things frilly, feminine and froufrou.
Evidently, Monsieur Dior’s legacy is all about crafting fashion with a capital “F” within the hallowed halls of a heritage house hawking luxury with a capital “L.”
Yet, all of it feels distant – fantastic even – when juxtaposed with the logo-heavy hoodies or monogram-slathered sneakers one is far more likely to encounter at Dior today. ‘Tis, after all, the season of streetwear, and it’s been that way for a while now.
But streetwear, like high fashion, is also ever-evolving. Or dead. Or didn’t exist in the first place, depending on whom you ask. For instance, Dior Men’s Kim Jones leans towards the latter: “You wear clothes in the street, so everything’s streetwear. You can wear a couture gown down the street, and that turns it into streetwear.”
Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior Women’s, on the other hand, is a solid subscriber to camp sweatpants. And nowhere was this more obvious than at the mega-Maison’s Spring 2025 lineup, where athletic archival references, from Dior’s autumn/winter 1951-1952 Amazone dress to the Jackie-O-approved 1962 Dior Sport collection, abound.
And to the excitement of us handbag-heads, tucked quietly amidst this season’s sporty buckles and leather gloves was yet another archival nod to athleisure—the Dior Columbus bag, a true streetwear star from the early aughts.
Not to mention an underrated brainchild of the singular John Galliano.
Taking the Chic to the Streets
Model Mimi Potworowska had purchased a mackerel from the local market one faithful February morning in 1985, intending to cook it for dinner ahead of a ready-to-wear show she was due to walk in later that day.
What she hadn’t known, however, was that it wasn’t just any show – it was to be the first commercial collection of the then-relatively-unknown John Galliano.
She had not anticipated that the faithful fish in question would be making its high-fashion debut here. It was reportedly seen flying narrowly past the grande dame of style, Joan Burstein, one of Galliano’s biggest patrons and the owner of Browns boutique.
You see, such was the magic, or rather, the “sheer Galliano-ness,” of John Galliano, a “combination of humor, assiduous craftsmanship, and tingling atmosphere that let the audience believe they weren’t just at a trade show (which is essentially what a catwalk is) but party to a one-off drama,” the BBC chronicles. For a wanton – if somewhat dubiously refrigerated – mackerel to be there was hardly surprising.
Thus, it was Galliano, arguably one of the last of fashion’s enfants terribles, who’d laid the groundwork for couture’s love affair with the streets. His judicious use of the Oblique logo (now rendered across every possible product category) was originally a reference to Look 42 from Dior’s Spring 1969 collection, and his reinterpretation of grunge unraveling in the form of Fall 2000’s hotly debated Winter of Discontent.
It was somewhere in between the low-slung hip-hop jeans, Mexican bathing suits, and python outerwear of his peak camp era that he gave the high fashion stamp of approval to what had existed as various skate and surf subcultures till that point – the world of streetwear. And with that, a purse suited to the streets – the Columbus!
A Functional Fashionista Favorite
But what the Columbus is to the Dior Saddle is what the Silverado was to Chloé’s Paddington – the weird little sister that never got its fifteen minutes of fame.
Where the Saddle, first introduced in the brand’s Spring 2000 lineup, was meant to be ridden on into the new millennium in distressed denim and horsebit hotpants – its inspiration a raunchy 1976 Helmut Newton photograph named ‘Saddle I, Paris’ – its sibling was a product of Spring 2002’s Street Chic collection, toted resolutely by models dressed as “lavishly clad Bedouins, army recruits and girls in the ’hood.”
It’s a collection that has, as it often does with Galliano, gone down in fashion history, if not always for the right reasons. But the handbag? Well, not so much.
And you can see why its shape hadn’t appealed as much to the aughties’ sensibilities as its older sister. The Columbus was boxy, buckled, furnished with customizable functional pouches, and, on the whole, far more usable than the Saddle.
So, of course, it was the Saddle that made it onto Sex and the City as a conveyor for Carrie’s contraband cigarettes, and it was the Saddle that, following a strategic spotting on Beyoncé, made a comeback at Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Fall 2019 show.
After all, functionality in fashion – whoever’s heard of that?
Sailing Into the New Age, in Style
That’s not to say that all hope is lost for Columbus. In 2019, for instance, not long after everyone and their mothers were digging out their very own Saddles from the inner crevices of their closets, fashion’s recherché Y2K hype-girl Bella Hadid opted instead for a sleek, black rendition of the Columbus.
And in June this year, a Rihanna sighting with a limited-edition white iteration in tow at the Paris debut of A$AP Rocky’s AWGE well-nigh confirmed what had so far been floating around as whispers – the Columbus was, indeed, on its way back!
Since then, searches have spiked on major resale platforms like Vestiaire Collective, especially for versions including the full accouterments. The heavily punk-inspired “Victim” pieces from the Spring/Summer 2003 collection continue to command the highest price tags.
It’s also great timing, considering the rather eventful year Galliano’s been having, between the rhapsodically reviewed Spring 2024 show for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal Collection – described by Vogue’s Mark Guiducci as “The fashion fantasy that ’90s kids were promised” – and the rumor mill on overdrive buzzing with news of his potential reinstatement or reappointment at a mega Maison.
But even apart from the (entirely timely) throwback to the creative mind behind it, as well as its streetwear origins as reinterpreted for the SS25 runway (one even sporting the OG eyelet-encrusted belt), the revival of the Columbus is also smack on board with the utilitarian-chic cargo bags movement that’s been appearing in luxury lineups as far and wide as Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, Gucci and Chloé.
So really, the Dior Columbus, and with it, Dior’s streetwear trappings (as horrifying as that might have been to Monsieur Dior himself), isn’t perhaps all that distant from the halcyon days of the design prodigy.
Because the definition of elegance, and with that, of femininity, has now evolved to encompass the woman as a whole, a modern-day Amazone of sorts, more significant than the sum of her parts (or in the case of Dior, of her clothing and accessories).
In the emblematic words that graced the guests at the show, “May the building of a strong mind and a strong body be the greatest work I have ever made.”
(Fateful, not faithful, probably.)
Otherwise, thank you for this insightful look at this bag! I’m mostly not familiar with Galliano’s time at Dior, and I learned a great deal.
Maria Grazia is masterful at reinterpreting Galliano – perhaps Dior should rehire Galliano
He’s too busy with drugs.
Love how this forum! Decided to completely overlook all the drama that Dior has been involved in this year. And instead, they wanna brush it under the rug and completely keep on glamorizing. The brand that has been the focus of so much negative backlash.
Who. Cares.
Personally I think Dior is ready for a new CD. For the most part, to me their ready to wear and accessories don’t feel that relevant to current trend and society and culture. Not that they need to be a trendy brand, it just seems very very stale. The hardware, the fussiness, the fashion to me feels a bit dowdy. Jonathan A would be a really interesting twist.