Brianna: Style Icon Post - Marie Antoinette

The Problem of Leisure, What To Do For Pleasure

the famous portrait of Marie Antoinette by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun (1783)

 a still from the Sofia Coppola film, Marie Antoinette (2006)

If there is one thing people know about me, it's that I'm obsessed with Marie Antoinette. Obsessed. I adore her. From her fashion, to her short and tragic life and her sassy personality, I can't get enough.  Especially her fashion. It may be hard for people from the 21st century to understand what's so fashionable about 18th-century ladies with 3 ft tall powdered hair and large pastel colored dresses... yet, the impact her style had on her peers in Versailles, how it warped the French nation's view of her, and how it is part of what we remember her for causes her to be an utter style icon.

a French fashion plate from the 18th century of Marie Antoinette

Before little Antoine (her family's name for her) had even turned 10, the adults in her life were scheming the plan of her marriage to the next king of France, the then Dauphin Louis Auguste. By 14, she was given the french version of her name, Marie Antoinette, and was shipped off to France to be married to this mystery boy she had never even met before. And when she did meet him...well...it wasn't the ideal meeting she (or anyone) would have been hoping for. Louis Auguste was a fat, gawky, and awkward  16-year-old boy. He looked at the ground more than he did his future wife. He didn't even kiss her. During the whole carriage ride back to the palace of Versailles, he hardly spoke a word to her. On their wedding night, he didn't so much as even hold her hand. His sole interests were lock making and the hunt. He was shy and awkward when Marie was lively and charming. It was as if Scarlett Johansson married Michael Cera. 

So, Marie indulged in some retail therapy.

 

two pairs of shoes belonging to her royal highness herself, Marie Antoinette

fashion plates depicting the queen

She set trends for all of France, and all of France was watching. Young and trendy women of the aristocracy immediately copied her styles, while the older nobility gossiped about them. One of the biggest scandals that happend because of Marie's fashion choices was a lightweight, informal dress called the  gaulle. It was a floaty frock made from muslin  with ribbons and "bracelet cuffs" on the elbows. Marie first wore these at her private country-esque retreat, the Petit Trianon, so she could gain the ability to move freely (something the rigid and restricted court dresses did not allow). Instantly, everyone became enamored with this easy way of dress.  Even in England they became all the rage; Marie had sent a gaulle to her friend, Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, and as soon as Georgiana was spotted wearing this charming garment, every Duchess, Countess, and Princess had to have one. Yet, this dress did not come without scandal. Marie's enemies criticized that this queen was dressing in her undergarments and speculated that this dress was made to help her lovers gain access to her more private parts faster. 

                                                                                    La Reine en gaulle (1783)

You can't talk about Marie Antoinette's style without mentioning her hair styles.  These instantly became a staple of 18th century fashion after she took it to the extremes. Her hair was fryed and curled to be placed meticulousy on top of her head. It was powdered, in all different types of colors, white being the main one.  Fresh flowers, shining jewels, tall peacock feathers, and figurines were placed all in this huge mass of hair.  The figurines could be anything, usually they were based off of current events, like a winning of a battle in a war or a current holiday. Every woman wore these massive hairstyles, making them as original and fierce as they could come.

         Marie Antoinette's best friend, the Princesse Lamballe sporting a enormous pouf

    

a perfect representation from Marie Antoinette (2006)

   

                                                                 pouf  from Affair of the Diamond Necklace

La Pouf a la Belle Poule, Marie Antoinette's hair-do displaying a French figrate that won in a key victory against the British in 1778 . Also, my personal favorite picture of her

Fashion for Marie was sacred. The French court was completely outdated and she brought the life and style back into it that it had certainly been missing. Being Austrian, she was an outsider in France. When she came into France, she was politically inept and even more so ignorant. Queens of France had basically no real royal rights; she could never inherit the throne or rule in her own right. She had no voice in national politics. Queens of France were basically only expected to provide heirs.  Fashion was the one way Marie Antoinette could have her own voice.  It ended up being the main thing that the French people hated about her the most in the end, nicknaming her Madame Deficit and claiming she ruined France with her spending. Yet, being sheltered in Versailles and being politically ignorant, she had no way of knowing the true state of the French people. She had neither politics nor real power. Fashion was her only representation of self-possession. Fashion and extravagance was her one way out of a dull and boring court life. It was her way of an 18th-century teenage rebellion. She risked everything for fashion and in the end, lost everything for it.

VIVE LA REINE,

Brianna

(credit for most of these pictures goes to nocake)