The Saddle has lived twice. John Galliano designed it in 1999 and sent it out for the Spring 2000 show, an equestrian provocation that Y2K promptly made its own - the bag of Carrie Bradshaw and the flip-phone years. Then fashion moved, the Saddle went quiet for roughly a decade, and in 2018 Maria Grazia Chiuri brought it back and opened the archive-revival era that every other house has been running ever since.
Two lives means two markets in one model, and the date code separates them cleanly: a Galliano-era code decodes to the years around 2000, a revival bag to 2018 onward. A Saddle whose code lands in the long quiet between the two eras is a finding in itself, and every physical detail - canvas, hardware, lining - must agree with whichever life the code claims.
Decide which Saddle you are buying before you bid, because the two generations are different objects at different money. The vintage oblique-canvas bags carry the Y2K premium and the revival bags carry the boutique one, and sellers blur the line in both directions. The code is the border guard.
A Dior date code dates and places the bag; it authenticates nothing, and counterfeits carry correct-format codes. Dior issues no standalone authenticity card for its bags, so a listing leading with the certificate is selling paper, not provenance - the paper card carries the style number, which is not a date and not a verdict. Pieces made before about 1997 carry no code at all, and absence on true early production is normal. For any serious purchase, route through a platform authentication program.
Model histories and date-code systems compiled from documented maison history, resale-industry authentication references, and period documentation, cross-checked across independent sources.