Get Your First Look at Dior’s Summer 2018 Bags, In Stores Now

There's a lot to love for both fans of the classic Lady Dior Bag and French artist Niki de Saint Phalle

If Maria Grazia Chiuri’s time at the helm of Dior has been about anything, it’s been about women. And not “women” in the retro, somewhat condescending way in which male designers sometime claim to cater to the fairer sex, but in a more modern way. Women are the animating principle of Chiuri’s Dior, but not just in theory—she’s clearly intent on making clothes and bags for how women actually live and see ourselves in 2018. There have been aesthetic foibles in that pursuit along the way, but ultimately, her intention is clear and refreshing.

In that vein, Chiuri’s also made the brand into a big supporter of female artists. For Spring 2018, many of Dior’s bags featured prints from the feminist Motherpeace tarot deck, and for summer, the bags feature more art made by women: specifically, many of the bags feature prints or beaded work from the archives of French sculptor and painter Niki de Saint Phalle. The works are colorful and exuberant, two characteristics that typified de Saint Phalle’s work, and they make for some fun bags.

The collection generally sticks with Lady Dior bags, both unadorned and embellished with artwork. That’ll be good news for fans who prefer Dior’s traditionalism to Chiuri’s most recent bag debuts, and besides, the broad, flat front of a Lady Dior works perfectly to display art or embellishment. Check out those bags and more below; you can find these designs in Dior boutiques now.