Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution [Hardcover]

Caroline Weber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2006

In this dazzling new vision of the ever-fascinating queen, a dynamic young historian reveals how Marie Antoinette's bold attempts to reshape royal fashion changed the future of France

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.

Weber's queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion--the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs--was also the means of her undoing. Weber's book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of history's most controversial figures.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At Versailles, where even the daily rouging of the Dauphin's cheeks was a highly ritualized and politicized affair, and where obedience to protocol could brook no infringement, 14-year-old Marie Antoinette's refusal to wear her whalebone corset threatened the Bourbon-Hapsburg alliance. As this prodigiously researched, deliciously detailed study (perfectly timed for the fall release of Sofia Coppola's movie) of the doomed royal's fashion statements demonstrates, her masculine equestrian garb, ostentatious costumes for masked balls, high Parisian hairdos and faux country-girl gear were bold bids for political power and personal freedom in a suffocating realm where a queen was merely a breeder and living symbol of her spouse's glorious reign. An iconic trendsetter whose styles were copied by prostitutes and aristocrats alike, Marie Antoinette was blamed for France's moral decay and financial bankruptcy, the blurring of class lines and callousness toward the poor. When many of her aristocratic contemporaries donned tricolor ribbons and jewelry set with stones from the Bastille's demolished walls as pro-revolutionary emblems, a defiant Marie Antoinette reintroduced her most opulent jewels into her daily costume. The generously illustrated history by Weber (Terror and Its Discontents) posits that the queen's fashion obsession wasn't about narcissism and frivolity but self-assertion; even at the guillotine she controlled her image with a radiantly white ensemble. (Oct. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Plenty of proof here, from an associate professor of French at Barnard (and author of Terror and its Discontents, 2003), that clothes did indeed make the woman. Weber's thesis, made clear at the outset, is that the dauphine-soon-turned-queen's costumes became an accurate symbol of her individuality and personality versus political unrest. No minutiae is left unnoticed; for example, Marie Antoinette's struggles with the strictly mandated whalebone corset was the epitome of her initial lack of acceptance by the French court, whereas her creation of the three-foot-high pouffed hair-dress was emblematic of her preoccupation with fashion. One revolution in women's accoutrements, unfortunately, was swapped for another more deadly revolution in politics and freedom. Tales of intrigue dot every page (for instance, the long-standing feud with Louis XV's mistress, Comtesse du Barry), as do the foibles of commoners and royalty. Using bold and engaging prose, the author has created a whole new appreciation for academic writings. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (September 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805079491
• ISBN-13: 978-0805079494
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #378,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( A ) > Antoinette, Marie

More About the Author

I'm an associate professor of French at Barnard College, Columbia University, where I specialize in eighteenth-century French literature, history, and culture. I hold degrees from Harvard (B.A.) and Yale (Ph.D), and before coming to Barnard, I was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania for seven years. Besides my academic books and articles, I have written essays for "Vogue" and "The New York Times." I live in downtown New York City with my husband, Tom.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A curious counterpoint to Antonia Fraser's biography, December 17, 2006

By 

Frost77 (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (Hardcover)

This book should definitely be read after one reads Antonia Fraser's "Marie Antoniette: A Journey." This is not a definitive biography, nor does it claim to be. However, it looks at the ill-fated queen in a unique and textual way- through the clothing choices she made at every juncture in her tenure as Dauphine, and later Queen of France.

Weber analyzes everything from color to fabric, hair to corsets in this impeccably researched work. She makes the reader conscious of the UNCONSCIOUS messages we send in our clothing, making one rethink the social consequences of an "I'm with Stupid" T-shirt. Making the satorial social and back again, Weber looks at the way in which Marie Antoniette affected her public and the rebellion she was able to mount without saying a word.

Obviously interest in this book will be high due to the Kirsten Dunst movie. However, this book gave me more of a sympathy for the queen who was thrust into the public eye in France and the decisions made by her and for her. It gave me a different picture of a rebellious queen that I couldn't find in the film. A great read for anyone interested in fashion, Marie Antoniette, and the French Revolution.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Politics of Fashion, September 21, 2006

By 

J. Soll "Pierre Martel" (Cosmopolis) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (Hardcover)

In this elegantly written, fast paced book, Caroline Weber shows that Marie Antoinette was not an empty-headed and materialistic teenager, but rather a conscious political actor in the turbulent times of the French Revolution. Boxed and ribboned in the confining world of court fashion and etiquette, Weber entertainingly and authoritatively illustrates how the doomed French queen used the fashion packaging which Louis XIV had created to stifle the aristocrats of his court, turning them from warriors into powdered courtiers, and used it as both an individualistic and politically expressive force. This book not only gives an accurate and nuanced historical account of Marie-Antoinette's relationship with fashion missing from Sofia Coppola's movie, its also a great read!

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enlightening and entertaining exploration of history, fashion, gender, and power, December 8, 2006

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (Hardcover)

Marie Antoinette is all the rage. From Sophia Coppola's new movie to a bevy of recent magazine articles, the infamous queen is making headlines. But the spotlight is nothing new for her; people have been interested in her life and activities since she arrived in France as a 14-year-old princess. One such person is Caroline Weber, a French professor teaching at Barnard College, Columbia University who has written a fascinating biography of Marie Antoinette titled QUEEN OF FASHION.

Weber approaches the queen's life story from a totally unique perspective: what Marie Antoinette chose to wear (and what was chosen for her to wear) at various stages in her life. Weber suggests that her fashion choices reflect her attempts to assert her identity and to gain power in a culture where she was expected to be a passive representative of the throne.

Even before she married the future King of France as a young girl, the Austrian Archduchess was told that her looks and appearance were of the utmost importance. She had to undergo a makeover that included extensive, painful dental work and the powdering of her strawberry blond hair, just for marriage negotiations to continue. As she was handed over by the Austrian entourage to the French, she was stripped naked in a room of strangers and redressed in what was considered to be more appropriate (that is, more French) attire. Right away the young woman knew that fashion was what she was expected to be interested in, and she decided to use it to her advantage. She became a figure that challenged propriety, the roles of women and the nobility in her society through the clothing and hairstyles she wore.

Weber convincingly demonstrates how Marie Antoinette, rendered essentially powerless by social and political norms, managed to assert some influence, through her appearance, that extended beyond France's borders. In the beginning the princess (later queen) was adored. French society was enamored of her, and women especially found her refreshing and relatable. The nobility and other traditionalists were less taken by her. However, by the end of her life she was reviled and demonized, accused of sexual misconduct, irresponsible overspending and other corruptions. And, as France found itself heading toward revolution, her foreign birth and foreign ties were impossible for the nation to ignore.

During every stage of her life in France, Marie Antoinette used dress to express herself --- even when she was hated, she was copied. In fact, after her execution by guillotine, the fashion was for women to wear a thin red ribbon tied around their necks. Her choices in fashion were often overtly political, challenging to the social order and always deeply personal. Weber's examination of Marie Antoinette's life through what she wore is engaging, eye-opening and immensely enjoyable.

QUEEN OF FASHION is a truly enlightening and entertaining exploration of history, fashion, gender and power. Weber manages to balance an academic's eye for detail and research with a storyteller's voice for drama, tension and narrative. Marie Antoinette remains, after all this time, a worthy subject for biographers. Weber's contribution is one of the most unique, well-written and recommendable additions to the canon.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman