Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

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It is best if one has a strong grounding in French history, particularly during the reign of Louis XV as well as revolutionary France to fully appreciate this book. Marie Antoinette emerges as a somewhat willing victim of her fate. As traditional Austrian imperial royalty within the rigid world of Versailles she was characterologically incapable of comprehending the social crisis erupting in France. Her purview was rebellion against the strictures of the court and she used extravagant fashion and expenditure to stage her battles. In this way she guaranteed the enmity among courtiers and the public alike.

This book should definitely be read after one reads Antonia Fraser's "Marie Antoniette: A Journey." This is not a definitive biography, nor does it claim to be. However, it looks at the ill-fated queen in a unique and textual way- through the clothing choices she made at every juncture in her tenure as Dauphine, and later Queen of France. The pouffs roses so high on the Sillies heads, that bed attendants had to climb on bed ladders to cover the pouf and the Silly had to sleep on many pillows, the pouf wrapped in endless swaddling. The pouf with vegetables was very much the thing, the Sillies said they would never favour flowers again. About her spending she could not be persuaded but her brother did successful harangue her husband a talk that was so scorching and so rough perhaps, that after his departure, the' laxical bridegroom made it atop his bride, and a year later she conceived a child'. The gold dress she wore for the 2012 Diamond Jubilee palace pop concert was influenced by the golden figure on the Queen Victoria Memorial, around which the stage was constructed. The wretched state of the people while Louis danced, hunted, and copulated from his assembled deer girls and then an alliance with a not French bride for his son, was too much, for the people, her great show of wealth thought right for court audiences, were to the person with a starving child or no money for bread a terrible goad.The Dauphine's first act of defiance, a 15-year-old's strop, was her refusal to wear the grand corps, the rigid corset permitted only to the court elite. Her second was to learn to ride, and don not only male-style upper-body garments (nothing novel about that, female royals and courtiers had galloped about in similar equine fig since the 1660s), but to wear, and be painted in, breeches, while astride the saddle. Hunting Frenchwomen hid "culottes" under skirts; only the awesome Catherine the Great of Russia and comic actresses flaunted their lower limbs in breeches. The Queen always had an innate understanding of how her wardrobe could add visual interest to her appearances. She knew this was helpful on the ground, in making herself a focal point by which onlookers straining to catch a glimpse could instantly make sense of a crowded scene. And she knew, also, that it helped make a great photograph. There is a lovely playfulness to this outfit, designed by Ian Thomas for a visit to Blois in France in 1992. The unstructured coat is unusually soft in silhouette, while the pink flowers glimpsed on the dress seem to wink to the flowers on the hat. It's very interesting. If you have any interest in Marie Antoinette or the time period, you should read this. Yes, there are some pictures in there, but they're there to aid you in a visual. I adore the pictures! I think she should have included more. Oh well.

I feel that a lot of the book was a stretch--the brand-new Dauphine notices a tapestry of Jason and Medea, calls it a "bad omen" for a wedding, and we assume that it plants in her mind the idea to manipulate fashion for power? Yeah, probably not. And while the special occasion could see some nods to the platinum theme, the style will be the familiar one that has developed throughout her record-breaking reign.

Soon though she is sparkling with the other young girls in court, nobody over thirty should be at court are among her brightest opinions. In her final decade, Elizabeth II remained closer to home. US photographer Annie Leibovitz photographed the Queen on two occasions. The spectacular portraits of the first sitting presented a monarch of Hollywood dreams. The second, by contrast, revealed the Queen off-duty in her favourite tartan kilts and tailored tweeds, surrounded by family and dogs at Windsor Castle. It was a pertinent reminder that behind the carefully stage-managed façade was a woman, wife and mother most at home in the countryside. and yet while her reign lasted she had caused the greatest personages of France to bow to the frivolous yoke of fashion, a fashion of which she was the ingenious and lavish inspirer.'

The all-weather outerwear, sturdy shoes and trademark silk scarf. The Queen seen here at Windsor around 1975 is a familiar image: off-duty and out of the city. Ian Griffiths, the British designer of MaxMara, described the Queen as “the ne plus ultra of authentic British style” when he paid tribute to her off-duty style at Milan fashion week last year. He added that “despite any notions we might have about class divisions, it’s a completely democratic look … She looks at ease in what she’s wearing, un-self conscious and nonchalant, and I’ve always thought that’s the key to looking good.”

That this was a a spoiled and terrible court is obvious but she was a little Maid, representing Vienna, and the hope of a peaceful alliance between the two countries.