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Madeleine Fitzpatrick

Production editor, Specialist Publications and China desks


There is something disarming about naming a luxury handbag after a sensation. But then, Jonathan Anderson has never been especially drawn to the conventional.

Since taking the helm at Dior in 2025 – becoming the first designer since Christian Dior himself to serve as the house’s sole creative director, overseeing womenswear, menswear and haute couture – the Northern Ireland-born designer has been quietly reworking how the maison presents itself.

His spring/summer 2026 womenswear collection, which earned a standing ovation in Paris last October, felt at once deeply rooted in the Dior archives and very much alive. The newly released Crunchy bag is surely one of the most convincing expressions of that approach.

The cannage motif underpinning the design is a defining code of the brand. Its origins can be traced to the Napoleon III-style gilded rattan chairs that lined Christian Dior’s Avenue Montaigne salon for his inaugural 1947 défilé – the legendary New Look show that announced a defining post-war silhouette in a single afternoon. The woven cane pattern became a house emblem over the decades that followed, appearing first on perfume packaging in 1953, before being elevated to near-mythological status with the 1994 debut of the Lady Dior bag, with its signature quilting.

Anderson likewise resists treating cannage as a mere graphic. The Crunchy bag gives the motif a sculptural guise: pressed into a slightly crinkled, semigloss leather that is defined but never rigid. The surface catches the light with every turn of the wrist, with the bag’s supple structure and gently padded volume imparting a lived-in ease. It is a play of contrasts at once faithful to Dior and recognisably Anderson’s.

Practicality is no afterthought. Available in small and medium formats, the bag’s gold handles permit hand-carry, shoulder wear or a crossbody configuration, making it work as well for a gallery afternoon as for an evening that runs longer than planned. A palette spanning black, brown, pastel yellow and dark green feels both true to the season and enduring. The word “Dior”, worked subtly into the chain eyelets, is a detail you only find when you go looking for it.

The Crunchy bag underscores Anderson’s preoccupation with craft and materiality – something the designer has returned to on multiple occasions throughout his career. It is an object designed not merely to be seen, but to be held, handled and lived with.


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Style Edit: How the Dior Crunchy bag distils Jonathan Anderson’s vision for the maison

Medium Dior Crunchy bag in soft yellow macrocannage. Photo: David Sims

Medium Dior Crunchy bag in black macrocannage. Photo: Handout

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Medium Dior Crunchy bag in soft yellow macrocannage. Photo: Handout

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Recasting Dior’s iconic cannage motif in sculptural volume, the new accessory is the creative director at his most tactile and assured


Recasting Dior’s iconic cannage motif in sculptural volume, the new accessory is the creative director at his most tactile and assured.


Style Edit: How the Dior Crunchy bag distils Jonathan Anderson’s vision for the maison

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Recasting Dior’s iconic cannage motif in sculptural volume, the new accessory is the creative director at his most tactile and assured

Recasting Dior’s iconic cannage motif in sculptural volume, the new accessory is the creative director at his most tactile and assured