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Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution Paperback – Illustrated, October 2, 2007

by Caroline Weber (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 248 ratings
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A Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year

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.

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  1. Print length
    448 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Picador
  4. Publication date
    October 2, 2007
  5. Dimensions
    6.15 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0312427344
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0312427344
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A perceptive work of scholarship that helps to explain the transcendent importance of fashion to French culture.” ―The New Yorker

“Queen of Fashion is as richly imagined as the gowns it describes. . . . As sociology, it's nothing short of stunning.” ―The Washington Post Book World

“Absorbing, fascinating, a wonderful display of grace and expertise.” ―The New York Review of Books

“A thrilling frock-by-frock account . . . While this book is rigorously researched, Weber's narrative style is energetic and alive with her own feminine pleasure at a beautiful dress or an outrageous pouf.” ―Entertainment Weekly (grade: A)

“Wickedly enjoyable.” ―The New York Times Style Magazine

About the Author

Caroline Weber is associate professor of French at Barnard College, Columbia University. A specialist of eighteenth-century French literature, culture, and history, she has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Her publications include Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution; Terror and Its Discontents, a well-received and widely taught book on the Reign of Terror; an edited volume of Yale French Studies; and numerous academic articles. She lives with her husband in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; First Edition (October 2, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312427344
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312427344
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.15 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 248 ratings

About the author

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Caroline Weber

Caroline Weber

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I am a professor of French & Comparative Literature at Barnard College, Columbia University, where I specialize in 18th & 19th-century French literature, history, & culture. My newest book, PROUST'S DUCHESS (Knopf, 2018), explores the fizzy intersection of aristocracy, celebrity, & artistic genius in fin-de-siecle Paris. The book involved 7 years' worth of detective work in the unpublished private papers of its three heroines, the real-life society doyennes upon whom Marcel Proust modeled his fictional Duchesse de Guermantes, the reigning goddess of the Parisian nobility in IN SEARCH OF LAST TIME. My previous books are QUEEN OF FASHION: WHAT MARIE ANTOINETTE WORE TO THE REVOLUTION (2006) & TERROR & ITS DISCONTENTS (2003). I have written extensively for the mainstream press & for fashion magazines as well as for scholarly publications; my aim in all my work is to make my material accessible & engaging to the reader. The image that appears above as my main author photo is actually a portrait of me painted by my amazingly talented friend Brad Livingstone Black.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
248 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

J. B. Pritchard
5.0 out of 5 stars Biography of a fashion icon
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2008
Verified Purchase
Pros: Unique and successful way of approaching Marie Antoinette's life, well written and entertaining.

Cons: Sometimes gets a tad bit too descriptive with the costumes.

"Queen of Fashion" approaches the life of Marie Antoinette by looking at the wardrobe that she was infamous for. Caroline Weber has a brilliant talent for showing both what Marie Antoinette's wardrobe said about her as a person, a political entity and for what her subjects perceived it as saying. Part cultural history, but above all, biography, each chapter of "Queen of Fashion" reveals a different aspect of Marie's personality. Weber does not merely focus on the queen's most outrageous fashion choices, but shows the progression of her life through her clothes. We see Marie Antoinette as a scared fourteen-year-old, stripped of her clothing and power, as a glittering diva spending obscene amounts of money to be the first lady of fashion, and as a widow dressed in black, deprived of the clothing choices that had come to define her, but still attempting to make statements with what little she had left. The book doesn't make any apologies for Marie, but neither does it cast blame. It merely helps the reader to understand her better.

"Queen of Fashion" is superbly written. There is enough documented research to give the book weight, but it never feels dry or academic. I have trouble finding any faults with the book, but if anything, I would say that Weber just occasionally gets carried away with describing Marie Antoinette's outfits and goes on longer than needed.

Overall, though, a lush, entertaining book about a fascinating woman. 5 stars.
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lilly
5.0 out of 5 stars dressed to kill
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2013
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This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in how fashion influences and is influenced by politics. Marie Antoinette's mother - the Empress Maria Theresa - was the most politically astute leaders of her time. She arranged the marriage of Marie Antoinette to the future Louis XVI in order to solidify the French and Austrian alliance. One of her first actions upon the engagement of her daughter was to order a complete new wardrobe from France for her so she could appear more French. Ironically, this wardrobe was confiscated at Marie Antionette's transfer (the official ceremony) to the French as not being French enough. Later we see such mundane items as a corset and a simple muslin dress take on a political significance which even by today's sartorial (i.e. politicians darning blue jeans and the requisite lumberjack shirt to run for office) standards seem dismaying and out of proportion. The author goes through each stage of Marie Antoinette's life showing how what she wore opened her up to derision or praise according to how the political winds were blowing. And, ironically, how a necklace that Marie Antoinette never owned and, in fact, rejected outright as being too ostentatious set her on her first steps to the guillotine.
I highly recommend this book as a unique view of the political implications of dress in the 18th century. The author gives congent explanations and examples as to how dress at the French court and in France in general sent a powerful message to the populace.
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KSCBookAddict
5.0 out of 5 stars "Let Them Eat Fashion, Not Cake!"
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2013
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Okay, yes, I am well and truly aware that MA never said "Let them eat cake," and that it was from a princess 100 years before MA ever set foot in France. However, the spirit of that saying, how MA was accused of violating her subjects by blithely ignoring their economical state for the duration of her tenure as Queen of France, that I want to convey, even while knowing how she was in some ways innocent of their myriad of accusations.

This book, Queen of Fashion, originally caught my eye when the description laid out a biography of MA by basing much of her actions, her rise and fall from power, and her eventual demise through her clothing choices and how clothes in the time of late 1700's France conveyed power, prestige, privilege, and most especially, monarchial control. From the sample alone, I encountered a wealth of information based on MA's early years in Austria, how she was raised and tutored in the ways of dance, music, history, and etiquette on to when her betrothal to the Dauphin of France was finalized before she made her way to the border between France and Austria for the exchange of this primped and proper archduchess over to the French envoys. The amount of money that Maria Teresa spent on her daughter before she ever left the Austrian borders, a trouseauu that eclipsed all the dowries of her sisters, all to impress the French officials and nobility that would bear witness to the detailed, and yes very naked, transformation of this Austrian girl to French Dauphine, was mind-blowing. What I can only imagine as being close to millions of today's currency all for clothes, accessories, and a carriage to elevate MA into the French's idea of Bourbon luxury is incredible to me. And from there, the excess became even more stunning.

Over the course of the book, the amount of clothing and extras that MA commissioned, who her stylists were, where she shopped and perused in the streets of Paris, and the masses of details and jewels and fads she created and unleashed on the court and upper nobility, all outlined and embellished how MA was received at court when she first arrived (Louis XV found her quite charming and approved, the Dauphin was terrified of her, and many were just waiting for the Le Autrichienne to mess up so horribly she would be sent back to Vienna) and how the turbulent social and political climate of her time directed her actions from her entrance to France up until her death.

-- How she used the glorious over-the-top grandeur of her ancestor the Sun King, and consumed millions of livres to furnish her body with clothes, jewels, shoes, ribbons, hats, coats, and coiffuers, to build up her royal "credit" to win court allies when she couldn't birth an heir due to her husband's delicate erectile condition and earning the ire of French citizens for her expenditures and amounting debt as well as the nickname "Madame Deficit" in the bargain.

-- How she created unorthodox pseudo-pastoral styles of muslin and linen dresses called gaulles and wide farm hats tied with silk ribbons at her Petit Trianon in order to escape the exceedingly rigid, ridiculously complex etiquette of Versailles, and greatly offending the authentic peasants that starved for bread and flour that MA was constantly covering her hair with while also starving the established French silk industry with her imported fabrics.

-- How she commissioned an entire wardrobe of royalist-colored dresses and coats when the revolution was metaphorically (and quite literally) beating down the doors of the palace to have her head, thus encouraging her captors that any promise of complicity and support of the changing political times was an absolute falsehood, condemning MA even further in their eyes as a born deceiver, an insatiable monster, and the cause of all their problems.

-- And how, during the final hours of her life, MA chose to wear a pure white gown and cap on the ride to her execution, cementing into the minds of the revolutionaries that had come to watch her death, the vision of an unstained, almost deified, figure that graciously and full of dignity strode to her doom, not once allowing the pain and grief of her unfortunate life, her lost husband and friends, her children torn from her arms, and the cruel, malicious actions of biased, hateful jailers to be seen on her face as she confronted Madame Guilliotine for the first and last time.

I loved this book. LOVED it. I would gladly recommend this book to any history buff or MA lover. The amount of detail, research, and flow of information was perfect. I devoured it in days. Please, if you love MA or are a fan of France circa 1700s, get this book. It will not disappoint.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Guillaume Tabet
5.0 out of 5 stars Bon livre.
Reviewed in France on November 29, 2019
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Exemplaire en très bon état
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D Tamborine
5.0 out of 5 stars ... describes the politics of fashion and what it was like to live in a gilded
Reviewed in Canada on May 26, 2017
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a well written book which describes the politics of fashion
and what it was like to live in a gilded cage
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La Femme Savante
5.0 out of 5 stars Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2012
Verified Purchase
I have read several books on Marie Antoinette, this is without doubt my favorite biography because Weber's thesis is refreshingly different and thought provoking.

Unlike previous biographies which chart Marie Antoinette's life and tragic end, this version analyses why she behaved the way she did,most significantly through her clothes. I am not denying that Marie Antoinette was shockingly extravagant and reckless in her pursuit of 'high fashion' and assuming the mantle of 'trend-setter'; but the reader sees her behavior in context. Most notably, Weber argues that Marie Antoinette was painfully aware that she had not given France an heir, this undermined her position at court and consequently the Franco-Austrian alliance that resulted in her marriage. Weber argues that by assuming the role of leading fashion trends and spending extravagantly (Louis XVI was extremely indulgent possibly to compensate for not having consummated their relationship for several years.) This conveyed to the court that she exercised power, more so than was really the case.

The account is also well balanced and documents Marie Antoinette's taste for muslin gowns which had a devastating effect on the French silk industry. Marie Antoinette was either oblivious or unwilling to acknowledge the consequences of her new taste for muslin over silk.
Also, as frustrating as court etiquette was it was very much part of court culture and Marie Antoinette was rebellious in adhering to these rules. Concerning etiquette in particular, it was foolish and short-sighted to rebel as it provided fuel to the anti-Austrian faction at court.
In the case of her unwillingness to wear the intesely restrictive 'corps' corset, the result were rumours that this was a result of a deformity!

I think this account is deeply thought-provoking. That Marie Antoinette was so very young and inexperienced when she arrived at Versailles and painfully unaware of the politics and factions. I really did feel huge sympathy for her despite her decadence. That it was a case of being damned if she did and damned if she didn't.

The saddest chapters were towards the end that detail her life after the execution of Louis XVI: if took the soldiers over an hour to prize her young son from her to be taken away. Being separated from her family on the eve of her trial, taking the watch her mother gave her when she left Austria and her wedding ring. Despite her shortcomings as Queen the revolution was so very cruel to her, wishing to break her spirit.
Despite her upsets it appears that these stiffened her resolve to act with dignity and in a white gown she went to her execution with courage and fortitude.

I throughly recommend this book, not just to those who are fans of Marie Antoinette. It is well researched and an absorbing and sympathetic though balanced account of a tragic life.

There is also a lecture on U-Tube by the author if you should type in the title of the book. This is also worth watching.
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Scott Jarvis
5.0 out of 5 stars STUNNING!!! A brilliant look at the French Revolution from a different and the best angle.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2010
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The first thing that attracted me to this book was the stunning cover portrait. This really sums up the whole book which is STUNNING. The beauty of this women attracts you to her story.
The second thing is that this book really does focus on how the queens fashion trends effected as i see it the whole of Europe, which in turn effected the outcome of her life.
I have read previous biographies by Antonia Fraser and Evelyne Lever which are also impressive, but this book outshone them both and i think it will be impossible for anyone to improve on what Caroline Weber has written.
If you find the history of fashion, as well as the story of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution interesting then i highly recommend this book.

Scott Aidan Jarvis
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Fernand Robichaud
3.0 out of 5 stars Wrong place wrong time
Reviewed in Canada on January 17, 2022
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The book is an attempt to fit a narrative (clothing) with an event (The French Revolution).

Notwithstanding Marie-Antoinette loved her clothes and spent a lot of money on them, it didn't really matter, as she wasn't the only one, it was a case of the ancien régime coming to the end of its life cycle. Marie-Antoinette just do happened to be Queen just when the whole monarchy came crashing down, nothing she could have done to save a sinking ship.

The French Monarchy basically imploded by greed, infighting, weak monarchs and a blind trust that somehow things were going to work out. The fact the coffers were empty and 50% of the budget went toward debt financing (interest payments at exorbitant rates) because they didn't have a central bank, wasn't a big deal until the poor came knocking at the front door of Versailles and demanded bread, together with the cook (King), his wife (Marie-Antoinette) and their children, which they hawled to Paris. That October 6th,1789, event marked the end of the French Monarchy for all intent and purposes.

Her clothes was a pretext to attack Marie-Antoinette, the Austrian princess, she represented a bad alliance, the French/Austrian alliance of 1755/56, which costed France the 7-year war with the lost of its colonies in America. England simply couldn't believe their luck and promptly attacked with the results we know today.

Marie-Antoinette was born the year this alliance was signed, thetefore it wasn't her fault but she ended up its victim like many others.

I give it a 3, as it is way too focused on trying to fit a narrative as opposed to telling it like it was.
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