Marie Antoinette's Shoes:
From riding horses in men's style pants to using clothing to shock others; Marie's fashion sense actually may have caused her demise. She was a woman who made some mistakes, but was actually ahead of her time in other ways. She wanted to be comfortable at a time when noble women wore not so comfy clothing.
In Caroline Weber's the Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, she discusses the fashionista's gowns, dressmaking and her life. Fashion is always linked to politics and culture and in this case it is no less central. She was taught or forced at a young age to be decadent and this extreme display led the public, who was suffering, to take matters into their own hands.
Caroline Weber is an associate professor for the Department of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University, New York. While this book came out in 2007, with the sale of Marie's shoes for $57,000 in France last weekend, it deserves another look. I chose this book out of the many historical reference you can find because of its discussion of historic antique fashion.
The Washington Post book review states:
"When her carriage first crossed over from her native Austria into France, fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette was taken out, stripped naked before an entourage, and dressed in French attire to please the court of her new king. For a short while, the young girl played the part.
But by the time she took the throne, everything had changed. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber tells of the radical restyling that transformed the young queen into an icon and shaped the future of the nation. With her riding gear, her white furs, her pouf hairstyles, and her intricate ballroom disguises, Marie Antoinette came to embody—gloriously and tragically—all the extravagance of the monarchy"(Washington Post).
THE SHOES:
The auctioneers billed them as being worn by her during the Fête de la Fédération (a celebration of the one year anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille) of 1790, they also remain alluring due to her persona. Such a persona written about and discussed in Sofia Coppola film, although loosely but what fun! Not to mention during the public destruction of many pieces in her wardrobe make this interesting. They are white silk featuring little pleats in the front in a size 36, reported as being worn with white gown and feather/ribbon headpiece.
18th Century Fashion Antique Clothing References:
Costume Close-Up: Clothing Construction and Pattern, 1750-1790.
Linda Baumgarten (Author)
Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700 - 1915.
Sharon Sadako Takeda (Author), Kaye Durland Spilker (Author), John Galliano (Author)
Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns: Book 1 (Womens Dress Patterns).
Jenny Tiramani (Editor), Susan North (Editor)
Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail.
Avril Hart (Author), Susan North (Author)
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