Marie Antoinette, the ‘Most Fashionable Queen in History,’ Reclaims Her Throne at the Victoria & Albert Museum

LONDON– The legend of Marie Antoinette was born the moment the steel of the guillotine sliced the skin of her neck. That is the impression gathered from “Marie Antoinette Style” at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which calls her “the most fashionable queen in history.” This jewel of tony South Kensington has assembled an spectacular show of the legacy of the martyred monarch. Here the ancien régime meets avant garde fashion.The V&A calls Marie Antoinette a “complex fashion icon.” Her modern day courtiers include such doyens of style as Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano, both of whom were inspired by the slain queen. Their work is on display here. Antoinetee was born an archduchess of Austria, the 15th child of Empress Maria Theresa — a Habsburg— and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. She married Louis Auguste at 14 and four years later was Queen of France.The museum has assembled some 250 objects that attest to Antoinette’s influence. Many have been shipped down the road from Versailles. Some have never been seen outside of France. On display are her silk slippers, jewels she handled, a lock of her hair, and the final note she scrawled before being led to her doom. Antoinette, long seen as an out of touch despot — “let them eat cake” — is reimagined as Muse to “leading designers and creatives.”‘Marie Antoinette Style,’ September, 2025. Via V&A Press OfficeWas Antoinette, as the V&A has it, an “early modern celebrity”? During the turbulent days of the Revolution she was called Madame Déficit and blamed for the country’s dire financial straits. In “The Affair of the Diamond Necklace” she was falsely accused of a plot to defraud the Crown’s jewelers. That her signature was forged did little to salvage the reputation with the frothy masses.Displayed alongside shimmering jewels, stunning gowns, and a projector playing scenes from the “Marie Antoinette” film starring Kirsten Dunst as the beknighted queen is a stark reminder of Antoinette’s ultimate fate. There’s a gnarly stone with a blade attached to it like a lethal appendage, a blade that looks like it could still separate a head from its shoulders. It is said to be the very guillotine that killed Antoinette on October 16, 1793.The V&A explains that the executioner’s delight was purchased from the grandson of high executioner Charles-Henri Sanson by the sons of Anna Maria Grosholtz, better known as Marie Tussaud of wax museum fame. Tussaud did a brisk if macabre business in the aftermath of the bloodletting at Paris, and a photograph of her wax replica of a death mask for Antoinette is on display here. Gossips claim Tussaud snuck into the cemetery to get it right.Moschino Show, Runway, Fall Winter 2020,Milan Fashion Week, Italy. PIXELFORMULA/SIPA/ShutterstockOne of the most affecting objects on display is the white linen chemise Antoinette wore in prison. In a show full of regal threads, it is the only full dress here that Antoinette wore. Its ghostly simplicity — reminiscent of a burial shroud — offers an otherworldly contrast with the more ornate designs and dripping jewels. She would have worn it as she trod the path to the guillotine in Place de la Révolution. The exhibition is sponsored by Manolo Blahnik, and the shoe designer relates that the Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s biography of the queen from 1932 was an influence. Sofia Coppola, who directed the 2006 film, has ventured that he is from whom “Marie Antoinette would have ordered her shoes.” This show’s final movement is devoted to Antoinette’s afterlife among haute couture. Highlights are Art Deco inspired evening dresses from the 1920s.‘Antoinetta,’ by Manolo Blahnik. 2005. Via V&A Press OfficeThe show’s final room is filled with gowns confected by Moschino, Viviene Westwood and Valentino, and Dior among others of the great fashion houses. The singer Rihanna has lent a satin jumpsuit and a lace fan. The show’s curator, Sarah Grant, explains that “there are entire Chanel and Galliano collections we could have displayed, but we just tried to choose the most iconic pieces — some cheeky, and some more elegant and classic.”The most arresting image for this correspondent is Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s 1783 oil painting “Marie Antoinette With a Rose,” secured on loan from Versailles. The Revolution is still six years away and her execution lies a decade in the future. The queen’s enigmatic smile conjures something of “The Mona Lisa.” The blue-grey silk of her dress rhymes with the azure of the sky in the background. She is every inch a queen.

Marie Antoinette, the ‘Most Fashionable Queen in History,’ Reclaims Her Throne at the Victoria & Albert Museum

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