Marie Antoinette Style

François-Hubert Drouais - Marie Antoinette in Court Dress, 1773

The legend, mystery and tragedy of the life of Marie Antoinette looms large at the Victoria and Albert museum in this exhibition, the first ever in the UK examing the influence of her legacy on contemporary fashion and style during her reign as the last queen of France. There isn't much to enlighten the viewer about Marie Antoinette's personality or who she actually was as a person. Marie's mother was the formidable Empress Marie Theresa of Austria who brokered Marie's betrothal to Dauphin Louis XVI, where Marie became Dauphine of France at the age of just 14. Four years later when Louis ascended to the throne as king, Marie became queen. At the royal court Marie was expected to do nothing more than stand still and present the king with an heir. Marie apparently dazzled in a silver gown at the wedding and then became known for her fashionable style of dress and extravagant tastes. Welcoming visitors at the entrance to the exhibition is a portrait of Marie Antoinette animated with AI trickery in which the queen smirks, smiles and winks knowingly at the viewer there is also another traditional portrait of the queen aged 22 in silks, ruffles and bows, by her favourite painter, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. The first room proper of the exhibition opens with a showstopping brocaded silk and silver thread gown of the Duchess Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta, loaned from the Royal Armoury in Stockholm, which we are told is similar to that worn by Marie Antoinette at her wedding. It is a spectacularly sculptural gown with the tiniest waistline, a sign of the young age at which Marie Antoinette and others like her would have been married off. There are many 18th century period gowns that line this room, these are dress styles that she popularised but none that actually belonged to Marie Antoinette, as after the French revolution her wardrobe was looted, cut up and dispersed so very little of her clothing actually survives. Items on display that did originally belong to Marie Antoinette exhibited here however include tiny (size 3.5), delicate shoes, and a fragile black lace collar. These items are marked with her royal monogram in the accompanying captions indicating that they belonged to her personally. Actual links to a notorious history. Just into the next room one can view jewels which the queen also owned which were enhanced by innovative new cutting techniques of the period making them sparkle intensely. Marie’s personal jewellery had to be smuggled out of France and held by her only surviving child, Marie Thérèse. In the exhibition, many of these jewels are reunited with Marie’s own elegant jewellery casket created by Martin Carlin in 1770, for the first time since her death. We get further glimpses into Maries's life and the creations of her hairdresser and stylists Monsieur Léonard, and Rose Bertin with etchings from 1778 documenting elaborately voluminous hairstyles in the shape of a ship called The Triumph of Liberty. There are also displays of fans, personally commissioned dinner services and interestingly a set of decorative rather than practical gardening tools with which she oversaw the landscaping of the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, and Rococo furniture which she installed into her personally redesigned interiors. Many of the objects here were loaned from the palace of Versailles for the first time ever. One interesting ceramic item is the jatte téton or “breast cup” from her Sèvres Rambouillet dairy service, long believed—incorrectly—to have been modelled on her own breast, the porcelain object illustrates the layers of myth about her image which are tackled a little further into the exhibition. Scent was quite a thing for Marie Antoinette we are told and she would burn scents in her room and perfume her body to counter the strong odours of Versailles. Overcrowding at Versailles meant the chamber pots and cesspits produced constant nasty aromas offensive to the nose. The exhibition contains a clever little scent experience section by Tasha Marks consisting of ceramic portrait busts each filled with a mixture of scents which attempt to evoke particular scenes through fragrances from Maries life. The first attempts to transport you to a ball at Versailes, with the combination of beeswax, smoke, oak and body odour. The next recreates a personal scene of Marie at her dressing table through a mix of orris root, rose, lavender, tuberose, violet and musk. The third elicits the aromas of Maries gardens at the Petit Trianon, with grass, lilac, roses and honeysuckle. The last bust contains fragrances to summon the despair of her final days in prison and recalls the smell of mildew, and sewage from the polluted Seine. Next viewers are given a sense of how Marie was perceived publicly. We see her being targeted for her lavish spending and opposition to social and financial reforms when France was in financial crisis where she became known as Madame Déficit. There are a selection of satirical period books and salacious etchings which begin to criticise and scandalise the queens behaviour and image. She was reported to be promiscuous and accused of having illegitimate children. Amid this growing unrest in the populace and an attempt to flee to Austria, Marie was imprisoned to await her grisly fate. This sets visitors up nicely for the emotive next room painted the colour of congealed blood, dealing with Marie's demise in which we see a guillotine, reportedly the actual one that beheaded her, taking her life at the age of just 37, death mask photographs, and her undergarment, a ghostly chemise worn whilst imprisoned. Most moving to me in this section was seeing the little notebook in which she wrote her last words praying for mercy and thinking of her children on the morning before her execution. She wrote - "My God, have pity on me! My eyes have no more tears to cry for you my poor children, adieu, adieu!" There is also a locket of her blonde hair. After this, the exhibition leaves the politics behind, adopting a more upbeat tone celebrating the enduring legacy of Marie Antoinette as a style icon and muse in fashion from the Victorian and pre-WWII eras. There is a particularly stunning Art Deco evening dresses here by Jeanne Lanvin, and a selection of Art Nouveau era books evoking Marie Antoinette's style, gorgeously illustrated by the likes of Georges Barbier and Erté. The last room of the exhibition is absolutely splendid, a visual feast featuring a parade of Marie Antoinette-inspired dresses by renowned fashion designers such as Galliano, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Vivienne Westwood, Moschino , Chanel, Valentino and Erdem. Some of these are offset beautifully by a dazzling, detailed porcelain wall installation consisting of cherubs, clouds and ornate mirror frames by artist Beth Katleman entitled "Marie Antoinette's Folly". There are a series of film excerpts depicting portrayals of Marie's life on the big screen by directors such as Sophia Coppola. Exhibition sponsor shoe designer Manolo Blahnik has a case of his exquisite shoe design drawings displayed alongside the beautifully crafted shoes themselves some from his Antoinette range. This whole room ends the exhibition on a fashion high. The gently atmospheric music piped throughout the exhibition steps up a notch here into a booming, euphoric rave anthem for a short period. An apt end, a rallying anthem to an enduring legend. What was interesting to see on my visit was how many other female visitors identified with the figure of Marie Antoinette going so far as to actually dress in period costume and in some cases powdered wigs. Marie Antoinette cultivated a particular aesthetic, a style which was both opulent and influential to her privileged courtiers, but was woefully misjudged and out of step with a hungry populace. Although we never really get beneath the veneer of Marie Antoinette as a person in the exhibition, perceptions of both her and her lifestyle can be read as a template for some modern female icons. As this exhibition demonstrates, her personal style and mythology are so strong they transcend both time and trends and will never go out of fashion.

Marie Antoinette Style

until 22nd March 2026

Victoria & Albert Museum South Kensington

Cromwell Road

London

SW7