How Diana helped create the cult of the designer handbag
First, there was the Kelly bag, named by Hermes after Princess Grace of Monaco in 1977. then in 1984 came the Birkin, the Hermes tote designed for English actress Jane Birkin’s busy life as film star, mother and fashion icon.
After that, couture houses largely stopped naming bags after glamorous clients — until Diana became a truly international star in the Nineties.
two brands are still making fortunes from the bags she carried: Dior’s Lady Dior and Ferragamo’s Lady D chainstrapped shoulder bag are classics — and remain marketed in her name.
Diana was always a bag connoisseur. As a young bridetobe, she loved the informal quilted bags in sunny Provencale prints sold by fabric shop souleiado on London’s Fulham road, once buying five in different floral designs for £30 each. Later, she followed the example set by the Queen — the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, too — whose day bags, made by royal Warrant holder Launer, stand as a symbol of monarchy.
the rule here was the coordination of an outfit. As the sloane ranger Handbook summed up in 1980: ‘Any well broughtup girl tends to think, as
she was taught to, in terms of matching shoes and bags.’
At first, this formal way of dressing proved a daunting task. Designer David Sassoon recalls Diana arriving in tears at his Bellville Sassoon studio after her 1981 wedding rehearsal at St Paul’s: ‘It’s all too much!’ she wailed.
She’d ordered her going-away outfit from him, but realised she didn’t have a bag to go with it. Sassoon set about making one.
But Diana was a quick learner, and as a young princess she complied with the matchy-matchy royal rules. To get a precise colourmatch, her discreet evening envelope- style bags were often made by her dressmakers rather than designer handbag firms.
Yet in 1990 she began buying from Italian brand Salvatore Ferragamo. Diana had more than 20 calfskin Ferragamo bags with distinctive gold-hooped Gancio clasps, retrospectively named the Lady D.
By the mid- Nineties, an emboldened Diana side- stepped royal protocol completely by wearing foreign couture labels. Her bag wardrobe took in Dior, Versace, Chanel and Gucci. It was among these labels that the Bag Wars of the 2000s were launched.
If Launer represented established royal protocol — a brand Diana perhaps pointedly never carried — the glossy European status bag was a symbol of independence after her separation from Prince Charles.