She’s sported a series of sparkling ensembles during her state visit to America, and now Queen Camilla has been spotted with a Lady Dior bag – a style named in honour of the late Princess Diana.
Camilla and King Charles are on the final day of their four-day trip to the States, having dined with President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania at a state banquet, and attended a star-studded charity gala in New York, among other activities.
And in their latest Instagram post, Camilla was spotted holding the bag that Diana catapulted to fame in the nineties – the £4,940 Lady Dior.
Diana was originally presented with the goat-and-lambskin bag as a diplomatic gift during a 1995 visit to Paris.
If not exactly designed for her, the cane-patterned, patent bag with its gilt hardware and double handles was a prototype that Diana was initially the only one seen with.
Rather than being simply delivered by a Christian Dior PR, however, the bag was presented to Diana by Bernadette, the wife of former French president Jacques Chirac, at the Grand Palais in Paris.
It was the fateful year of Diana’s Panorama interview, and her marriage was well and truly over. Any qualms she once had about being seen with foreign-made fashion brands were fast fading.
When Dior speedily rolled out the bag to its stores, Diana stocked up with plenty more in different colours, including black, which Camilla, together with a white version, also owns.
It was a design loved by Princess Diana, and now Queen Camilla has been spotted carrying the Lady Dior bag (Diana is seen wearing the bag in London, 1996)
The popularity of the bag, now re-christened Lady Dior, skyrocketed, and it became a best-selling house classic.
It comes after the Queen joined a starry reception for New York’s literary crowd on Wednesday, touring an exhibit of Anglo-American items with the actress Sarah Jessica Parker.
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Camilla was also reunited with Dame Anna Wintour, Global Editorial Director of Vogue, who removed her trademark sunglasses to greet the royal visitor with kisses.
The Queen, in a navy blue crepe silk dress and coat by Fiona Clare, with a Britannia red, white and blue brooch that belonged to the late Queen, was at the New York Public Library for the event hosted by her charity, the Queen’s Reading Room.
Introducing her to the room, US TV host and author Jenna Bush Hager, whose Read With Jenna book club features on NBC’s morning programme the Today Show, said of the Queen: ‘Books are part of her DNA.’
In her own speech, Camilla described the venue as ‘one of the world’s greatest libraries, and somewhere I have always wanted to visit.’
Describing how her father inspired a love of reading in her as a child, she said: ‘Indeed, the first Americans I knew and loved were the characters I met in my treasured children’s novels: Little Women, What Katy Did, Charlotte’s Web… I knew, even then, that books are the best friend you can have – in good times and bad.’
Around 100 guests from the literary, publishing and cultural worlds in the US and UK, including singer Katherine Jenkins and the authors Harlan Coben, Min Jin Lee and Tina Brown, mingled in the historic Stephen A Schwarzman building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
The landmark has featured in dozens of movies and TV shows, dating back to 42nd Street in 1933 and taking in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Ghostbusters and Sex and the City.
In the Royal Family’s latest Instagram post, Queen Camilla was seen carrying the Lady Dior bag in black
Pictured: Princess Diana is seen in Liverpool in 1995 wearing a Versace suit and carrying a Lady Dior bag
The elegant Lady Dior Bag, pictured, is made from lamb and goatskin and costs £4,940
In the latter, Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie Bradshaw was stood up at the library on her wedding day by Mr Big and rushed down the grand staircase of the library’s Astor Hall to leave.
Camilla and Sarah Jessica echoed Carrie’s route down the stairs after being reunited at the reception, having met in London earlier this year. The actress is a Booker Prize judge.
Speaking ahead of their meeting, she described the Queen’s visit as ‘great for all New Yorkers’.
She added: ‘I think anytime we have an opportunity to talk about our libraries and talk about literacy, I know that the Queen has spent a great deal of time focusing on that in her country.
‘She mentioned that there was this opportunity for a sort of bridge project, and our libraries are, you know, they’re challenged a lot with funding and support.
‘So I’m thrilled that we get to be in this extraordinary building. Patience and fortitude and highlight this extraordinary repository for these documents, and that she’s made it her business to carve out time to talk about this birthday, and what lies here, that illustrates our history.’
She said that the last time she met the Queen, ‘we talked about books’.
‘It was, for all of us, a thrill and especially because she seems to covet her time with books; she seems to love reading as much as a lot of us greedy readers, and she also, she just showed so much hospitality in her home to everyone who was there.
‘She took so much time that day, with every single person, and to have her shine a spotlight on reading and the relationship between a reader and a book and how it changes lives and enriches lives and cultivates empathy and curiosity, I’m so grateful, and from Her Majesty, it means a great deal.’
