Emma Raducanu MBE is used to carrying heavy weights on her shoulders. After all, this is the 19-year-old tennis player who faced the expectations of millions of tennis fans across the globe when she won the US Open 2021, and became the first British woman to win a Grand Slam singles title since 1977.
However, when she’s not hitting balls on the court, the Bromley-raised teenager packs her handbag – a Dior Lady D-Lite handbag, we might add – full to the brim with essentials, from lucky-charm balls to her Dior sunglasses.
‘I always take a ball. I carry this because I practise my ball toss wherever I go,’ she says in Dior’s latest In My Lady video series, while explaining the contents of her bag. ‘I’m not sure if people realise quite how hard it is to keep it straight,’ she adds while trying to sign her name in pen on the white ball.
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The Dior ambassador continues, pulling out a medal on a pink ribbon. ‘It’s one of the first tournaments that I won,’ she says of the childhood item. ‘I think it’s really, really special to me, to carry this with me, almost like a good luck charm. I think the big one from the US Open maybe wouldn’t fit in here.’
Other items she pulls from the white leather bag include two passports (she was born in Toronto, Canada, but has grown up in London), a ‘refreshing’ ginger turmeric shot, and an endless supply of mints.
It’s become ‘a bit of an obsession’, she says of the mints, revealing that she got into the habit of nabbing free mints during the US Open last year.
At one point, she pulls out Dior's La Mousse OFF/ON au Nymphea Purifiant, which she says she uses after a match to keep her face feeling fresh and sweat-free, as well as a disposable camera. ‘I love how you can’t check the photo at the time, so you can really be present,’ she says.
At the of the video, the British number one takes out a white tennis racket – but, of course – which she uses to practise her shadow swings before a big game and ‘sharpen up’.
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Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
