Today is an exciting day because I get to teach you about Marie Antoinette! I’ll start off by saying she was a real nut case. Moving onto some brief biographical information, Marie Antoinette was born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna in the year 1755 in Vienna. She hailed from the house of Habsburg-Lorraine, which probably explains the nuttiness considering the astonishing amount of in-breeding in the Habsburg line. Fortunately though, based off the paintings I have seen, she did not inherit the well-recognized “Habsburg chin”.

Marie married King Louis XVI in 1770 and became dauphine of France(which is like princess-status), four years later her husband ascended to the position of King of France and she became Queen. As King Louis’s reign continued, she fell increasingly out of favor with the people of France, who considered her overly-lavish, promiscuous, and all around conniving. Despite that reputation, she was a fashion icon of the Georgian era.

It all started with a painting of a sheet-like  white dress called a gaulle(pictured left). The painting quickly became infamous and was met with outrage. The thin muslin garment she is depicted wearing was in sharp contrast with the structured and flamboyant gowns uniform to the French court(pictured right). In fact, the gown resembled what was worn as underwear at the time. Nevertheless, she had sparked a trend. The “chemise a la reine” caught on all over France and England. Another reason this painting was considered outrageous is the lack of reference to the king and the throne. This was very unusual at the time and can be owed to the fact that Marie Antoinette desired autonomy and a reputation outside of her marriage to Louis XVI.

 

Now to expand on Marie’s desire for autonomy. You may be aware of her lavish lifestyle(yes, even lavish for a queen), which included exclusive retreats with her favorite aristocrats. She spent exuberate amounts of money on leisure while the people of France, or the Third Estate, were experiencing famine and economic hardship. It also certainly didn’t help that her famous chemise was made of fine English Muslin, the popularity of which was a detriment to the French silk industry. She was loved and she was hated. Her behavior and dress was in rebellion to the structure of the European court yet she fed into it’s luxury.

As I’m sure you know, a little thing called the French Revolution cut her dreamland short. Although during the 1780’s Marie Antoinette took on more of her political role as Queen and attempted to salvage her position, her reputation never recovered and she failed to do anything to aid the people of France. In 1793 she was publicly executed by guillotine in the Place de la Concorde.

Despite her odd life and early death,  Marie Antoinette’s impact of on Western fashion was solidified and was one of the first steps towards increasingly simple and casual dress for women. She also abandoned the heavy make up commonly worn by members of the French court, although this had already fallen out of fashion in most European countries. Modern eyes still see the garb of the 1780’s as gaudy, but it was definitely a change from the complex and ornamented dresses of the prior baroque and rococo periods. The Chemise a la Reine remains one of the most iconic moments in fashion history to date.