Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

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The wretched state of the people while Louis danced, hunted, and copulated from his assembled deer girls and then an alliance with a not French bride for his son, was too much, for the people, her great show of wealth thought right for court audiences, were to the person with a starving child or no money for bread a terrible goad. The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations this year will see her fashion choices take centre stage. Cecil Beaton, who captured the official coronation portraits, described how the combination of sumptuous gown, ceremonial robes and Crown Jewels imbued her with a "Byzantine magnificence." But such opulence was not purely gratuitous. Throughout history it has served an important constitutional purpose: to reinforce the status of the monarch and distinguish them from the people and palaces that surround them. The Queen’s clothes needed to ensure she looked as she should: like a Queen. Couture Queen Later the things she was divested of were taken home as trophies by the ladies that attended her stripping and redressing as a Frenchwoman, and she would see them at court brazingly wearing those things they stripped her of.

She takes her place in this wonderland of pouf creation and extravagance that will bring down the Austrian daughter of the Caesar's. The all-weather outerwear, sturdy shoes and trademark silk scarf. The Queen seen here at Windsor around 1975 is a familiar image: off-duty and out of the city. Ian Griffiths, the British designer of MaxMara, described the Queen as “the ne plus ultra of authentic British style” when he paid tribute to her off-duty style at Milan fashion week last year. He added that “despite any notions we might have about class divisions, it’s a completely democratic look … She looks at ease in what she’s wearing, un-self conscious and nonchalant, and I’ve always thought that’s the key to looking good.” The title of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution is somewhat misleading, because this book isn't about fashion in the narrow sense of clothing. There are descriptions of Marie Antoinette's luxurious outfits and of the styles she promoted (like the Rousseauesque country muslin dress, the gaulle). But the author discusses a whole range of courtly styles and habits and shows how Marie Antoinette attempted to assert her individuality in this constrained sphere that was allowed her. It is best if one has a strong grounding in French history, particularly during the reign of Louis XV as well as revolutionary France to fully appreciate this book. Marie Antoinette emerges as a somewhat willing victim of her fate. As traditional Austrian imperial royalty within the rigid world of Versailles she was characterologically incapable of comprehending the social crisis erupting in France. Her purview was rebellion against the strictures of the court and she used extravagant fashion and expenditure to stage her battles. In this way she guaranteed the enmity among courtiers and the public alike.While this book is not perfect, it points out that clothing is a method of communication which greatly affects human interaction. Even today, in a less charged atmosphere than the French court, what we choose to wear (or not wear) says a lot about our social, economic, political and religious affiliations. It was said and likely true, of Marie Antoniette that she powered her wigs with flour when people had no bread. There was a change for Rousseau like simplicity in fashion, and the Sillies all became rustics. Shepherdesses with jaunty hats and simple muslins, not a stay or deeply torturing corset upon any of them.

They granted the hooligans permission to make the tour of the prison with Madame De lamballes head on the condition they left the corpse at the door’ When Her Majesty visits a school or a children’s centre, she is always dressed in a bright, jolly colour, and her hat has the kind of details that will appeal to youngsters – feathers, twirls, twists, flowers and ribbons,” Ms Kelly revealed in her book about her working relationship with the Queen – The Other Side Of The Coin. How far the barb had entered peoples hearts showed in the ruthless dispatch of this effete class , it became know as the Terror, days of terrible bloodshed. Perhaps says the author of this book this was ‘ in retaliation for those scenes of appalling aristocratic coldheartedness that the insurgents vowed to make the white haired white skinned, well dressed princess suffer- Lamballe through her brutal death and ritual coiffing , and the Queen through a forced encounter with her friends savagely styled head..’By the 1960s, there were shift dresses and petal-covered hats, and in the 1970s trendy geometric prints and occasionally turbans for day wear and flowing chiffon by Ian Thomas in the evening, while in the 1980s there were pussycat-bow blouses. Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," covering each phase of the queen's tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailles's rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly" outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her.

I feel that a lot of the book was a stretch--the brand-new Dauphine notices a tapestry of Jason and Medea, calls it a "bad omen" for a wedding, and we assume that it plants in her mind the idea to manipulate fashion for power? Yeah, probably not. Ms Kelly – who has the same size feet as the Queen – wears in the monarch’s handmade new shoes beforehand to ensure they are comfortable when first used. On 2 June 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey before a global audience of 20 million people. For many households, the coronation brought television into the home for the first time. What they witnessed was the pinnacle of costume drama as a 26-year-old woman pledged her life to the service of the nation. The Coronation Of course they could have left her her little dog. Her attachments would be ruthlessly pruned and chosen right down to her little dog , the consolation of her journey from her family, forever as it happened.

Her spending was enormous and nobody could dissuade her from it. The poufs were also home to little creatures, vermin took up nests in them, and there were special long combs for scratching your pouf if the vermin were too lively.

In her final decade, Elizabeth II remained closer to home. US photographer Annie Leibovitz photographed the Queen on two occasions. The spectacular portraits of the first sitting presented a monarch of Hollywood dreams. The second, by contrast, revealed the Queen off-duty in her favourite tartan kilts and tailored tweeds, surrounded by family and dogs at Windsor Castle. It was a pertinent reminder that behind the carefully stage-managed façade was a woman, wife and mother most at home in the countryside. Rose Bertin a milliner, makes her way to to the court of the new Dauphine. She is a pretty woman who knows how ‘ a well shaped ankle turned out nicely at the fireplace, where she sits will be to her advantage, but she is also a doughty heart who fights for the widows thrown into into the Bastille by pleading her case with the Dauphine. Rosey is in demand with the old boys too, who seek to abduct her away to to their little cottage, to have their way with her but she stands up to them defiantly and lets the whole world know, she is being put upon by this married old beard, who hisses’ little viper’ at her, attempts upon her to the world. This was an exceptional biography of Marie Antoinette with fashion as a decoding device akin to an anthropological device used in ethnography. More than any other treatment of Marie Antoinette this thoroughly researched work really set her in an historic cultural framework. Moreover, there was no glossing over the less attractive behaviors and attitudes of our heroine. Instead they are presented as all too human foibles exacerbated by the stultifying and constricted world of the French court amid socio-political crisis and change. The immensity of her power, is something to consider, when you think of of the consequence for the Dauphine, Rose in her flounces with her pretty face, a good bosom, is though constantly reminded to know her place. And while the special occasion could see some nods to the platinum theme, the style will be the familiar one that has developed throughout her record-breaking reign.The gold dress she wore for the 2012 Diamond Jubilee palace pop concert was influenced by the golden figure on the Queen Victoria Memorial, around which the stage was constructed. But despite them all, she is launched a great soft big bird in paint and curls and refreshing too, after the the stiff ladies in the Dauphine boudoir. Off duty, the Queen likes to dress for country life in a blouse and A-line skirt with a green waxed or quilted coat or a rain mac, her wellies and her familiar silk scarf knotted under her chin. At nursing or residential homes, the Queen wears strong colours to help those who are visually impaired, and on walkabouts, the crown and brim of her hat will be taken into account.