A beautiful silk slipper flying off the toes of a swinging lady, all lightweight petticoats and romance. What better setting could there be for Manolo Blahnik’s sensational shoes? Blahnik’s exhibition at the Wallace Collection has the ‘oval drawing room’ entirely dedicated to the candy-colored shoes designed for Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Marie Antoinette, which includes the iconic cotton-candy pink Antonietta’s and the burnt orange Dubarry’s seen alongside two famed romantic paintings, Fragonard's The Swing and Boucher's Mme Pompadour both of which evoke images of 18th century Paris. This is the only room where the shoes are shown in pairs, as curator Bray states that is because they are “couples” in keeping with the love and passion theme of 18th century Paris that is evoked through the art. This was partly due to a culmination of his love for Marie Antoinette. “When I was a little boy, my mother used to read to me and my sister pages of Marie Antoinette’s biography,” he said of why he was drawn to the project. “I for one, find her so inspiring. She died so badly, to pay for her sins. Yes, she spent money that she shouldn’t, but she was young and bored.”
But Blahnik isn’t the only one fascinated with the teen queen, Marie’s legacy lives on as the misunderstood queen of France and a pinnacle of fashion and beauty. Some examples include Fenty x Puma as Rihanna has continued to use the queen and her extravagant sense of style as a point of reference for other collections, like her baroque athleisure work for Spring/Summer 2017. Chanel’s 2013 cruise collection’s couture paid homage to her penchant for extravagance with beautifully embroidered gowns that were amplified with hip padding, Dior’s Couture Fall/Winter 2014 with the exaggerated shape of slim-fitting bodices, enormous skirts, and pastoral embroidery formed a striking and memorable collection for the season as well as since her first Marie Antoinette-inspired collection for.
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France's iconic but ill-fated queen Marie Antoinette was the 15th of 16 children born to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. ''Your beauty . . . frankly is not very great. Nor your talents nor your brilliance,'' the empress wrote her daughter in a typically demeaning tone when she was the 25-year-old Queen of France. ''You know perfectly well that you have neither.''
On the young princess’s journey from Austria to France to be married at only 14, her entourage was stopped at the border between the two countries. There, Antoinette was stripped of all her Austrian clothes and dressed in French garb. This ritual signified her transformation from Austrian to French. Soon, a lavish wedding ceremony took place in the royal chapel at Versailles. More than 5,000 guests watched as the two teenagers were married. It was the start of Marie Antoinette’s life in the limelight. Life at court was not easy for Antoinette. Her marriage was troublesome and, as she had very few official duties, she spent most of her time socializing and pampering herself.
Marie, at the tender age of 18, became Queen of France when her husband inherited the throne as King Louis XVI. As the sovereign, Marie ran a grand, exorbitant, and luxurious court. Her situation as an outsider to France, her spending, her perceived haughty nature, and the lack of an heir led to extreme defamation of her character in the French public’s eyes. From claims of extramarital affairs to violent pornography, anything and everything was written about the Dauphine.
At Versailles, Marie Antoinette spent her time, and all her attention and expenses on her wardrobe and hairstyles and the parties at which to exhibit them as well as decorating and redecorating her countless apartments in the palace. It is in these areas – of fashion and design – where Marie Antoinette left a lasting effect. However, this legacy also contributed to her downfall and that of the French Monarchy. In a country that was sinking in debt, and with people starving on the streets, the Royals' excesses would ultimately lead to the French Revolution, which would cost both King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette their heads.
It’s true that Marie used her privileges to the max and spent money excessively. However, she rejected the orthodox royal traditions and began to mold the monarchy in a new fashion, rejecting stark formality for a more personal touch. All the formalities were disregarded on all but key occasions. Marie Antoinette favored privacy, intimacy, and simplicity over the previous Versailles regimes, and Louis XVI agreed. t the Palace of Versailles she was a bird in a richly gilded cage. A queen at 19 – as the wife of Louis XVI of France – her dress, behavior and indeed her every move were the subject of minute and slavish scrutiny. Yet there was one place where Marie Antoinette could escape the formality of court life and shake off the burden of her responsibilities. This was the Petit Trianon, an exquisite mini-château in the grounds of Versailles. Marie Antoinette was also conscious of public suffering and donated to several charities. She was sensitive to the suffering of the poor, and often driven to tears when she heard of their situation. However, despite her position, she either did not have the drive to remedy the situation or probably lacked the political finesse to protect the monarchy.
The Queen of France had a personal court designer, Rose Bertin, who had her dress shop, Le Grand Mogol, and became responsible for the Queen’s look and styling. For the first time in history, Marie Antoinette, together with Bertin, elevated fashion and clothes from a trade to an art form. According to some sources, hundreds of dresses per year were made especially for the Queen to take part in social gatherings and balls. Marie Antoinette was a real trendsetter of her time. She represented the symbol of 18th-century extravagance. Her gorgeous dresses, sparkling jewelry, and fabulous hairdos that were truly works of art, made her the Queen of Fashion. Marie-Antoinette helped keep France the capital of European fashion throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries and her spending earned her the name Madame Deficit.
While Marie Antoinette’s life might have been cut prematurely short, her style lives on and is constantly recreated and enjoyed. The phenomenon of Marie Antoinette as the first true consumer of ‘haute couture’ clothing, together with her lavishness, and the sensation that her extravagance caused at the time, means that Marie Antoinette has a cult status in history, art history, and fashion history.
Marie Antoinette exhibited faults, such as spending frequently in an era when royal finances had been collapsing, but she remains one of the most incorrectly maligned figures in Europe’s history. She was let down deeply by the actions of her husband and the French state to which she had been sent and cast aside much of her criticized frivolity once her husband had been able to contribute to a family, allowing her to ably fulfill the role society wanted her to play. The days of the Revolution also confirmed her as an able parent, and throughout her life as a consort, she exhibited sympathy and charm.
Quite simply unique, and ever-imitated, Marie Antoinette and her famous styles will continue to inspire as long as her legacy survives.
So the condemned queen lost the battle, and eventually her head. But in the world of fashion, she most definitely won the war.
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