SPECIAL POST: Artist and Entrepreneur Diane Love

Diane Love brocade bag with gold chain, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Artist and Entrepreneur Diane Love

We've been quite taken with Diane Love's 1970s-1980s handbag designs for a number of years, and currently have five in our collection. Ms. Love is an artist, author, and entrepreneur with a monumental body of work, and is also an actor and cabaret singer. She's collaborated with high-profile companies such as Trifari, for which she created sought-after jewelry designs, and Mikasa, which carried her eponymous home goods line. She also had her own store at 851 Madison Ave. in New York City, featuring thoughtfully curated merchandise. 

According to a November 18, 1975 New York Times article entitled "Baskets That Are Objets d'Art," she'd opened her store four years earlier, with an inventory consisting primarily of elegant fabric flowers. This niche quickly expanded to related items. A quote from the Times article reads: "Besides flowers, baskets and such home accessories (as) ceramic plates and lacquered rattan and bamboo furniture in delectable colors—cinnebar, celadon, aubergine and lavender—there are envelope handbags of Japanese brocade in a multitude of colors and designs."

Diane (pronounced "DEE-ann") Love has been cited in numerous publications, including author and radio personality Joan Hamburg's 1983 Most For Your Money New York Shopping, Food and Services Guide. We could only see a few snippets from Ms. Hamburg's guide, which read: "Diane Love designs exquisite fabric flowers of cottons, silks, linens, velours and velvets and has them manufactured in France...Diane Love also sells her own design brocade bags, pure silk kimonos from the twenties, thirties and forties, wonderful baskets (ancient Japanese, turn-of-the-century American and contemporary hand-painted...)"

August 29, 1976 article about Diane Love and her art, The (New York) Daily News, clipped via subscription to Newspapers.com.

The Vintage Purse Museum's curator reached out to her via Diane Love.com in January 2026 with questions about her highly collectible Asian brocade evening bags. We were absolutely delighted when she responded to our message.

Diane Love brocade bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Diane Love's trademarked label, inside one of The Vintage Purse Museum's bags.

Here's what she wrote to us: "I used to make frequent trips to Japan when I had my shop on Madison Avenue. On these adventures I fell in love with the ceremonial brocades being used by Japanese women to make dolls—a very popular craft at the time. The geometric and organic patterns shot through with metallic threads seemed ideal for evening bags, and what better shape for the bag than a classic envelope. My 8" square envelope with pointed flap, gusset and pocket in the back was the ideal foil for such elegant woven fabrics. Each bag had a flexible gold snake chain so it could be carried over the shoulder or when used as a clutch tucked inside. The bag became a very popular accessory in the wardrobe of many women, including Jackie Kennedy Onassis." 

A 1978 newspaper article also mentioned that Mrs. Robert Redford was a wearer of Diane Love's evening bags, along with notable customers who'd purchased her pottery, jewelry, and floral designs, including Lee Radziwill, Candice Bergen, Lynn Revson, George Balanchine, Calvin Klein, Lillian Hellman, Anne Ford Uzielli, Anne Baxter, Ali MacGraw, Dustin Hoffman, Diane Von Furstenberg, Ginger Rogers, Barbara Walters, Estee Lauder, and Mrs. William Buckley.

The fifth Diane Love bag in the Vintage Purse Museum's collection is a basket bag made with Japanese fabric. When we acquired it, we were told that it was a Diane Love, but it didn't have her label, so we asked Ms. Love to confirm that it was one of hers. We also asked when her handbags were made and where they could be purchased at that time.

Unlabeled basket bag, verified as a Diane Love design by Ms. Love, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Ad for Diane love brocade drawstring pouch, December 1, 1983, the Tarrytown Daily News, clipped via subscription to Newspapers.com.

She told us that her basket bag was made in the style of Japanese "shingen bukuro," however, her best-known handbag was the envelope style. These elegant handbags were sold at her shop from 1970 to 1986, but also for a while at Bloomingdales and other stores.

Diane Love brocade bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Diane Love brocade bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Diane Love continues to create art, and is currently working on mixed media collage, examples of which can be viewed on her website. "As I see it is all of a piece," she told us. "Everything I have designed and made as an artist is derived from my Aesthetic Signature, a phrase I have coined to describe an individual's unique aesthetic."

A huge thank you to Diane Love. Visit her website at Dianelove.com, or follow her on Instagram @diane_love_art. Other resources used were Newspapers.com, and Google. This article c2026 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use information or photos from this website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.