Produced as part of Marie Antoinette Style at V&A South Kensington
Closes Sunday, 22 March 2026
The most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in
history, Marie Antoinette’s name summons both visions of excess and objects and
interiors of great beauty. The Austrian archduchess turned Queen of France had
an enormous impact on European taste and fashion in her own time, creating a
distinctive style that now has universal appeal and application…
Marie Antoinette’s story has been re-told and re-purposed by each successive generation to suit its own ends. The rare combination of glamour, spectacle and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the 18th century.
Sarah Grant, V&A Curator of Marie Antoinette
Style, 2025
This exhibition explores the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history, Marie Antoinette.
A fashion icon in her own time, and an early modern ‘celebrity’, the dress and interiors modelled and adopted by the ill-fated Queen of France in the final decades of the 18th century have had a lasting influence on over 250 years of design, fashion, film and decorative arts.
The exhibition traces the cultural impact of the Marie Antoinette style, and her ongoing inspiration for leading designers and creatives, from Sofia Coppola and Manolo Blahnik to Moschino and Vivienne Westwood.
On display are exceptionally rare personal items owned and worn by Marie Antoinette, including richly embellished fragments of court dress, the Queen’s own silk slippers, and jewels from her private collection.
The Queen’s dinner service from the Petit Trianon, her accessories and intimate items from her toilette case are on display for the first time outside of Versailles and France.
Contemporary couture pieces by designers such as Moschino, Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Vivienne Westwood and Valentino will feature alongside costumes made for screen, such as for Sofia Coppola’s Oscar winning Marie Antoinette staring Kirsten Dunst, as well as shoes designed for the film by Manolo Blahnik.
Marie Antoinette shaped not just the fashion, design, interiors, gardens, fine and decorative arts of her own time but has continued to exert an influence over more than two and a half centuries of graphic and decorative arts, fashion, photography, film and performance.
Biography (English Wikipedia):
| Marie Antoinette | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Portrait, c. 1775 | |||||
| Queen consort of France | |||||
| Tenure | 10 May 1774 – 21 September 1792 | ||||
| Born | Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria 2 November 1755 Hofburg, Vienna, Austria | ||||
| Died | 16 October 1793 (aged 37) Place de la Révolution, Paris, France | ||||
| Cause of death | Execution by guillotine | ||||
| Burial | 21 January 1815 | ||||
| Spouse | |||||
| Issue | |||||
| |||||
| House | Habsburg-Lorraine (by birth) Bourbons (by marriage) | ||||
| Father | Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor | ||||
| Mother | Maria Theresa | ||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Produced as part of Marie Antoinette Style at V&A South
Kensington
Closes Sunday, 22 March 2026
The most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in
history, Marie Antoinette’s name summons both visions of excess and objects and
interiors of great beauty. The Austrian archduchess turned Queen of France had
an enormous impact on European taste and fashion in her own time, creating a
distinctive style that now has universal appeal and application…
Marie Antoinette’s story has been re-told and re-purposed by each successive generation to suit its own ends. The rare combination of glamour, spectacle and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the 18th century.
Biography (English Wikipedia):
Marie Antoinette; Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna, 2 November
1755 – 16 October 1793) was the queen of France from 1774 until the fall of the
monarchy in 1792 and her subsequent execution during the French Revolution.
Born an archduchess of Austria, she was the penultimate
child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I of
the Holy Roman Empire.
She married Louis Auguste, Dauphin of France, in May 1770 at
age 14, becoming the Dauphine of France. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended
the throne as King Louis XVI, and she became queen.
As queen, Marie Antoinette became increasingly a target of
criticism by opponents of the domestic and foreign policies of Louis XVI and
those opposed to the monarchy in general.
The French libelles accused her of being profligate,
promiscuous, having illegitimate children, and harboring sympathies for
France's perceived enemies, including her native Austria. She was falsely
accused of defrauding the Crown's jewelers in the Affair of the Diamond
Necklace, but the accusations still damaged her reputation.
During the French Revolution, she became known as Madame
Déficit because the country's financial crisis was blamed on her lavish
spending and her opposition to social and financial reforms proposed by Anne
Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker.
Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the
Revolution after the government placed the royal family under house arrest in
the Tuileries Palace in October 1789.
The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in
the War of the First Coalition were immensely damaging to her image among
French citizens. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the
royal family to take refuge at the Legislative Assembly, and they were
imprisoned in the Temple Prison on 13 August 1792.
On 21 September 1792, France was declared a republic and the
monarchy was abolished. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January
1793.
Moved to the Conciergerie, Marie Antoinette's trial began on 14 October 1793; two days later, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793 at the Place de la Révolution.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/about-the-marie-antoinette-style-exhibition
EN ESPAÑOL
Notas de paso:
La exposición de María Antonieta, se enmarca en ese ámbito de riqueza patrimonial que parece inagotable y sin fin, como la sucesión de salas de esta institución, que es como una inmensa Wikipedia, antes se hubiera escrito, una interminable Enciclopedia Británica. Precisamente.
Muchos visitantes y entradas agotadas para una muestra que realmente va más allá de un personaje histórico icónico, como el de la ambigua hija (una de tantas) de María Teresa de Austria, emparentada con otras reinas y emperatrices de su propia familia.
Serán siete siglos de mandato de la casa de Habsburgo y numerosos sobresaltos en estos derroteros que sembraron la trayectoria de Europa. Se casó muy joven con un rey en principio impotente, Luis XVI, borbón, concibió finalmente herederos que le arrebató la guillotina o la desidia de un pueblo exhausto y hambriento, el mismo que forjó con sus manos las armas de la Revolución Francesa de 1789.
Se le atribuyeron amantes de ambos sexos, se la caricaturizó con ferocidad, sus peinados, pelucas, y vestidos poblados de joyas, traspasaron las fronteras. Fueron un paradigma y una de las causas que arruinó su reinado.
Ahí quedan como ejemplos de escándalo, la fuga de Varenne, la relación con el conde sueco Axel Fersen, el turbio y confuso "affaire del collar", la frase atribuida "si no tienen pan, que coman bollos" y un largo etcétera.
A menudo los pueblos ajustician a los que los abandonan y se arrepienten pero la pena de muerte con la guillotina, fue abolida recién en los años 80 gracias al ministro Robert Badinter, el mismo que dejó dicho que "El hombre es un animal que mata". Así que asesinamos- ajusticiamos con supuestos derechos para todo- y luego nos arrepentimos y de esta manera se declina la crónica de las "virtudes" humanas. Es el mito del eterno retorno, también aquí.
Todo vale por fin en una lectura diacrónica o tal vez no. Quedan el charme de la reina, los colores pastel de los macarrons de La Durée y una exquisita y entregada dedicación a mostrar todos los fastos de la corte versallesca en tiempos de Antonieta, concentrados en los fantásticos e idealizados retratos que pintó de la monarca su amiga y pintora Marie Louise Elizabeth Vigée LeBrun. Hay objetos, vestidos, conservados de forma increíble tras el paso del tiempo, retratos, luces, y visitantes que van de una sala a otra fascinados, en una verdadera inmersión de seducción, inevitable e hipnótica.
Enhorabuena al Museo londinense, cuya sensibilidad ha ido más allá de la producción de otra exposición más: esta ha sido una demostración de delicadeza histórica e historiográfica, que proporciona, como debería ser en estos casos, más preguntas que respuestas.
Esta muestra saca lustre al V&A, si es que le hiciera falta, que no, en una tradición de arte, de belleza y conservación, que lo ha constituido en una de las instituciones más emblemáticas y respetadas de su país y del mundo.
Alicia Perris
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