The makeover was demanding: Marie’s teeth were straightened and she was trained to perform the Versailles-glide, the graceful walk of the French royalty. Once this arrangement was made, Marie Antoinette underwent a preparatory makeover the rules of the French court at the Palace of Versailles were completely different from those of Vienna, and, as a Bourbon princess, she would be expected to dress and act accordingly, both day and night. This all changed in 1770, when a marriage was arranged between Marie, then 15 years old, and Louis-Auguste, the heir to the French throne who would soon be known as Louis XVI.

She was allowed to play and dress as she wished and, aside from being required to attend and dress up for formal occasions, the young Austrian princess was mostly left to herself. why wearing a simple garment isn’t always the best choice.Īs a teenager, Marie Antoinette was taught the political importance of fashion and appearances.Īs a child in eighteenth-century Vienna, Marie Antoinette lived a rather carefree life.how Antoinette transformed a hairdo into high politics.In this environment, fashion and appearance weren’t only for show they also had political repercussions – something this “queen of fashion” knew well. As the youngest daughter, she probably wouldn’t have expected to have a marvelous marriage, yet she ended up becoming a part of the most elaborate and luxurious court in Europe. Marie Antoinette was born on November 2, 1755, the youngest daughter of the emperor and empress of the Habsburg Empire in Vienna. “If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake.” This famous quote has been wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last queen of the French royal house of Bourbon, and even though she never said it, it sums up the image of Antoinette that we’ve inherited – of a queen remote from everyday people, spending her time obsessing over fashion and lavish parties.īut can such a simplistic image really be correct? What’s in it for me? Take a runway look at how Marie Antoinette got ahead in fashion. Her daring originality was a way for her to share her voice and personality, and her story tells us a great deal about the revolutionary politics that can be found in the history of both fashion and France. Queen of Fashion (2006) reveals the untold ways in which Marie Antoinette, with her iconoclastic sense of fashion and her rebellious behavior, challenged the status quo of the eighteenth-century French court.

Queen of fashion by caroline weber