Dior: an alternative dream

I grew up believing in beauty and art of Chanel. For me, this fashion house always represented a life full of glamour and glitz, soft laughter and elegant flirtation. Coco Chanel — a lady who taught women to wear trousers, who invented shoulder straps on handbags to give women an opportunity to have their hands free so they can carry either their work documents or their children (or, in fact, both) — was the epitome of what I always wanted to be: a revolutionary, a flirt, a creative.

Chanel 2.55 handbag, created by Coco in February 1955, seemed the ultimate dream: its lining the colour of burgundy wine (because, just like burgundy wine, women become better with age), its secret inner pocket where she used to keep letters from her many lovers, the slightly utilitarian caviar leather contrasted by the back pocket that is shaped like the soft Mona Lisa smile… All of it unquestionably arty, decorous, smart — all of it a DREAM!

Last Christmas, I finally saved enough to buy myself the Dream. Actually, it wasn’t “saving” as much in material terms but rather psyching myself up (for the lack of a better word) for being so self-indulgent. Even though my friends know better than saying “it’s just a bag” when I am around, I felt I would be judged for not dreaming about world peace instead (which I do sometimes, honest). For not investing further in my education. For not being practical, rational, and a grown-up.

So on that crisp day in December 2014, I walked into the Chanel boutique on Sloane Street and… I walked out. My Dream just didn’t seem that… well, dreamy! It looked like something that decorates the arm of every touristy fashionista in London. Something that represents mass art, like one of those Toulous-Lautrec postcards sold in hundreds on the banks of the river Seine.

Not me. Not my dream.

Since then, I don’t have dreams. Other than world peace, of course.

I have acquisitions, I have purchases, I have my favourite accessories.

One of them being my first Dior bag purchased in Houston this October. It is bright, impractical, and very different. This handbag doesn’t make sense. And that is why it is so me.

Are you judging me?