That takes the cake! How Marie Antoinette became the patron saint of our new gilded age | Fashion

Marie Antoinette: the Fragonard cupcake who bankrupted France along with her lust for style and diamonds, who bottle-fed pet lambs whereas her individuals starved. Irrespective of that, in reality, her frocks and jewels have been small fry in her nation’s monetary wreck; the optics, as we’d say now, have been horrible. So what if she by no means truly mentioned “allow them to eat cake” – historical past is not any match for an important soundbite. However whereas opulence hastened Marie Antoinette’s downfall, it has additionally introduced her immortality. Solely Cleopatra rivals her as probably the most glamorous queen in historical past.Marie Antoinette’s pearl jewels. {Photograph}: Sotheby’s/Bridgeman ImagesEven as she was pushed to the scaffold, an ignominious jerky journey by open ox cart by way of crowds of jeering Parisians, the final queen of France knew the facility of style. Marie Antoinette had worn solely black for the reason that demise of her husband 9 months earlier, defying a Jacobin ban on the carrying of a color related to the monarchy. However on the morning of 16 October 1793, she wearing a pristine white chemise, petticoat, gown and bonnet. The febrile fury of a hungry and indignant individuals had already torn her fame to shreds – she was denounced within the press as a whore, a baby abuser, a barely human “she-wolf” – however figuring out that every one eyes, nonetheless, have been on her garments, she protested her innocence to the final in one of the simplest ways she knew.Kirsten Dunst (left) in Sofia Coppola’s 2006 movie Marie Antoinette. {Photograph}: I Need Sweet/Zoetrope CorpTwo and a half centuries later, Marie Antoinette nonetheless cuts a defiantly glamorous determine in tradition, as compelling as she is controversial. Marie Antoinette Type, the primary British exhibition dedicated to her life and legend, opens on the V&A museum in London on 20 September. Its 250 dazzling items embody considered one of her silk slippers, her pearls and diamonds, a dinner service, and the final letter she wrote from the Conciergerie jail earlier than her demise on the age of 37. To ratify her standing as a style famous person, the present is sponsored by Manolo Blahnik, shoemaker to model icons from Diana, Princess of Wales to Carrie Bradshaw, who writes in his foreword to {the catalogue} that he has “been obsessive about Marie Antoinette so long as I can bear in mind”.The Sutherland Diamonds. {Photograph}: Kira Zumkley/Victoria and Albert MuseumRight now, the final queen of France is having a second. Not since she roamed the mirrored halls of Versailles in her macaroon-hued pomp has Marie Antoinette been this scorching. {That a} self-obsessed, shoeaholic airhead has recaptured the zeitgeist is probably not a completely flattering reflection of this cultural second, however the V&A’s exhibition couldn’t have come at a extra excellent time. With the world on a white-knuckle collision course between steepening inequality and the bling, $50m Venice marriage ceremony aesthetics of the planet’s ruling class, the horrible glamour of Marie Antoinette’s story may hardly be extra pertinent.The marriage robe of Duchess Hedvig Elisabeth, modelled on Marie Antoinette’s gown. {Photograph}: Göran Schmidt Livrustkammaren/SHMWe are in a brand new gilded age. Donald Trump adores the trimmings of French luxurious – by no means has a Washington inauguration been served with such lashings of Dior because it did in January – and the codes of royalty, which the US president reveres as a benchmark of status. Past politics, Marie Antoinette’s whiplash trajectory – from obscurity to the nation’s sweetheart to cancellation – displays the rollercoaster of our celeb age, which likes to idolise magnificence after which smash it to items.There was extra creativity, and extra technique, to her look than her picture as a Versailles Barbie suggestsThere are uncanny echoes of the actual contradictions of contemporary well-liked tradition in her story. Marie Antoinette is remembered for bling – her marriage ceremony gown, at age 14, was fabricated from diamond-encrusted silver fabric – however her most well-known creation was Hameau de la Reine, a mannequin farm within the gardens of Versailles, the place she and her mates would cosplay as shepherdesses and milkmaids, wearing charming rustic “garden attire” and straw hats becomingly fixed with silk ribbon. If Versailles was the superyacht of its day, then Hameau de la Reine was the tradwife, Maha-adjacent Instagram alternative – the Ballerina Farm of the 18th century, if you’ll. After which, in fact, there may be her notorious declaration of “allow them to eat cake”, which she nearly actually by no means mentioned, since she had been lifeless 50 years when the allegation was first hurled at her, however has caught quick nonetheless. The primary deepfake, maybe?A 1783 portrait of the queen by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. {Photograph}: Christophe Fouin/Château de VersaillesThe listing of well-known ladies who’ve been in comparison with Marie Antoinette is a reminder that the monstering of feminine celebrities, and the ghoulish vulturing of their recollections, is corset-laced by way of the centuries. There have been comparisons to Diana, one other stunning, blue-eyed younger blond royal who was pursued mercilessly by the press and met a brutal early demise in Paris. Hillary Clinton was likened to Marie Antoinette by rightwing commentators eager to painting her as elitist, out of contact and privileged: the identify was flung when she claimed to be “lifeless broke” after leaving the White Home, and when she described Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables”.Portrait of Marie Antoinette by François Hubert Drouais, 1773. {Photograph}: Victoria and Albert MuseumCarrie Johnson earned the moniker Carrie Antoinette when she selected gold wallpaper for a £112,000 revamp of Downing Avenue. Melania Trump’s former spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, in contrast the primary girl to “the doomed French queen” in her 2021 memoir, describing her as “Dismissive. Defeatist. Indifferent.” Earlier this 12 months, the Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix sequence With Love, Meghan was damned as a misfire by commentators who famous that the scenes of her feeding chickens whereas sporting completely blow-dried hair could have aimed for Martha Stewart however landed as Marie Antoinette. The comparability is usually an insult, so it was unclear what Kanye West was getting at when he described his then spouse Kim Kardashian as “a modern-day Marie Antoinette” in a 2016 journal interview, however that’s Kanye for you.Kate Moss in a 2012 outfit impressed by Marie Antoinette by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. {Photograph}: Tim WalkerLove her or detest her, Marie Antoinette’s is a cracking story. Born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Österreich-Lothringen in Vienna, Austria, in 1755, she was despatched to Paris by her mom, the empress of Austria, to be married to the French dauphin when she was 14. Her fiance, the grandson of the reigning king, was only a 12 months older. She was a pawn in advanced European diplomacy – it was mentioned that her mom would have most well-liked to ship an older daughter, however her sisters have been married, lifeless or too pockmarked to please the image-conscious French courtroom – and her pale-skinned, blue-eyed magnificence sealed the deal. She married Louis-Auguste two days after assembly him.An armchair of carved walnut, late 1780s. {Photograph}: Victoria and Albert MuseumThe dauphine was an outsider at Versailles. The French, who had solely simply completed preventing Austria on the battlefields, have been suspicious of the younger foreigner. Her teenage husband was a weak, colourless character, whereas Marie Antoinette – who liked style, and launched a development for hair worn 3ft excessive and embellished with feathers – had main-character vitality in spades.Antoinetta footwear by Manolo Blahnik. {Photograph}: Manolo BlahnikShe was a spectacular dresser, little question about that – for her husband’s coronation, she wore an embroidered robe swagged with sapphires – however there was extra creativity, and extra technique, to her look than her cartoonish historic picture as a Versailles Barbie suggests. Earlier than her reign, style within the French courtroom had been the area of the kings’ mistresses. Queens have been standard, home figures. Marie Antoinette, childless for the primary eight years of her marriage, discovered her standing as a royal spouse – and a international one, at that – more and more precarious because of this.So she leaned into style not merely as leisure, however as a strategy to enhance her profile, as mistresses earlier than her had accomplished. She appeared at one masked ball dressed as Gabrielle d’Estrées, the Renaissance mistress of Henri IV, in a confection of silver and white gauze girdled with diamonds and edged with gold silk fringing. Her chief collaborator in image-making was her dressmaker, Rose Bertin, dubbed the “minister of style” by the press. Collectively they set a development for Rococo pastels, and for wedding-cake robes iced with a fever dream of embroidery, ribbons and ruffles. Her wardrobe was her personal splendid livery, a defiant assertion of female energy.Sevres Bol-sein ou Jatte-téton by Jean-Jacques Lagrenée le Jeune. {Photograph}: Martine Beck-Coppola/Grand Palais RMNIn 1781, she was mentioned to have spent 750,000 livres – the forex of the day – on diamonds, and nearly one million on porcelain. For context, the day by day wage for many of her topics was three livres. The French public, angered by the large money owed being incurred by the elites, have been fairly understandably livid, and located a lightning rod for his or her discontent. Because the monetary disaster deepened within the 1780s, with the worth of a loaf of bread rising to nearly a full day’s pay, she earned the nickname Madame Deficit. This was by no means going to finish properly.Marie Antoinette’s crystal flask. {Photograph}: Michel Urtado/Grand Palais RMNIn 1792, on the top of the revolution, indignant crowds stormed her residence in central Paris. Discovering her absent, they smashed her mirrors and closets, venting their anger on the queen’s wardrobe. The royal household was abolished in France that very same 12 months, the queen discovered responsible of treason, and her destiny sealed. Like Marilyn Monroe and Diana, the excessive drama of her early demise enshrined her within the historical past books, and memorialised her on the top of her magnificence and glamour.Jacquemus’ Le Chouchou style present at Chateau de Versailles. {Photograph}: Stéphane Cardinale/Corbis/GettyNearly 200 years later, the second coming of Marie Antoinette – now reaching its zenith – started, fittingly, with the unique Materials Woman. In 1990, Madonna carried out her hit Vogue on the MTV Video Music awards, dressed as Marie Antoinette, carrying a gown Glenn Shut had worn on display because the Marquise de Merteuil in Harmful Liaisons, accessorised with a paper fan, pearls at her throat and feathers in her hair.Bracelet clasps from France. {Photograph}: Dominic Naish/Victoria and Albert MuseumThe feminist semi-rehabilitation of the French queen was then fuelled by the demise of Diana, with comparisons drawn between the 2 ladies, and gathered pace in 2006 with the discharge of Sofia Coppola’s movie, based mostly on Antonia Fraser’s sympathetic 2001 biography. Coppola, Hollywood’s patron saint of lovely entrapped girlhood, gave us a promenade queen Marie Antoinette, in pink Converse trainers and Manolo Blahniks, her powdered complexion swapped for Kirsten Dunst’s dewy youthfulness.A 2025 Dior shoot within the dairy at Versailles. {Photograph}: Buck EllisonThe ghost of Diana appears to hang-out some scenes – Dunst’s Marie Antoinette is a hugger, in defiance of royal protocol – however Coppola’s biggest reward to Marie Antoinette’s legacy was to make her cool, adorning her in corsets and chokers that might have stepped off Vivienne Westwood’s catwalk, and in sugary pinks and yellows which might be extra Clueless than Rococo.A Moschino runway present in Milan, 2020. {Photograph}: Pixel Method /Sipa/ShutterstockCoppola’s movie is a perennial on style temper boards, however a number of designers have not too long ago revisited the queen herself. In 2023, the cult French label Jacquemus staged a present at Versailles impressed by Marie Antoinette (backstage, the temper board was plastered with paparazzi pictures of Diana). When the Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson took up his submit at Dior to nice fanfare this 12 months, one of many first pictures launched of his new assortment confirmed actor Sam Nivola in a white shirt, silk necktie and pearl choker, photographed within the marble and gilt dairy constructed for Marie Antoinette in her Versailles Hameau.Madonna performing Vogue on the MTV Video Music awards in 1990. {Photograph}: Frank Micelotta Archive/GettyThe V&A present incorporates a Tim Walker {photograph}, taken for a 2012 difficulty of American Vogue, wherein Kate Moss performs Marie Antoinette, lounging in couture in a luxurious pastel suite on the Ritz in Paris, surrounded by coiffed lapdogs. Moss performs to perfection the pampered younger queen in an Alexander McQueen robe frothing with petticoats, a rare headdress of ice-blue tulle wobbling above her stunning face like considered one of Marie Antoinette’s well-known feathered pouf types. Her toes, in lace booties, aren’t tucked demurely beneath her, however caught out with teenage insolence; she doesn’t grace us with eye contact, however gazes petulantly on the chihuahuas. The picture encapsulates how glamour was on the coronary heart of Marie Antoinette’s love-to-hate-her persona.It’s a measure of her everlasting fame – and a becoming mirror picture of her legendary spending – that every thing she owned is priced as treasure. In 2018, Sotheby’s bought a diamond and pearl pendant from her assortment for $36m, 18 occasions its presale estimate. Style helped to kill her, however it has additionally made her identify dwell for ever. Marie Antoinette’s mom, in a letter written the day her daughter was dispatched by carriage throughout Europe, suggested her that “all eyes might be on you”. How proper she was. They nonetheless are. Marie Antoinette Type is on the V&A South Kensington, London, to 22 March.