Tiny weights are also put into daywear hemlines in case of windy weather, and fabrics that crumple or could potentially develop messy loose strands are avoided. This is probably the 5th times I've read this novel. I received this book as a gift for my sweet 16th birthday (the theme was masquerade/costumes, which I went as Marie Antoinette). One of my good friends got this book for me. When I got it, I wanted to go home and read it right then and there. However, I restrained myself. This is the book that spurred me on to reading biographies again. The premise for this book is that Maria Antoinette did not have a lot of power--certainly not the kind-of power she might have expected to have given her mother. She was also limited in the ways she could express herself. So, Marie Antoinette turned to fashion as a way to express her views and to influence her husband.

But she learns to ride a horse and is soon following the chase with her doting grandpapa, she’s a cutsie too, offering to embroider him a waistcoat, though it might take a couple of years. Du Barry the kings mistress, raised from prostitution to be the wearer of the most expensive cloth and jewels in an enemy of the archduchess riding out with her grandpapa, rejecting her corset! That this was a a spoiled and terrible court is obvious but she was a little Maid, representing Vienna, and the hope of a peaceful alliance between the two countries.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 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. 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.

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. 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.

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 She takes her place in this wonderland of pouf creation and extravagance that will bring down the Austrian daughter of the Caesar's. 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.

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. She was not to be subjected to any ugly people and so only beautiful faces were sent out to greet her. 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. 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.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. 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.