Marie Antoinette Prefigured Modern Celebrity Culture
» Fashion
The sentimentalization subsequent to her execution has left Marie Antoinette France’s most famous queen.
But her insane sartorial lavishness surely did much to cause her fate. Here’s how she was viewed by many French people in the time before the Revolution:
While fashion plates wore her face, pamphlets and pornography made her a monster—dissolute Messalina, lesbian predator, traitorous conspirator, snake-haired Medusa, harpy with claws, vampire in foreign muslin spending state millions to mock local rustics, wasting pounds of flour on her hair while the people starved for bread. Once angelic, Marie Antoinette was now plotting with hostile powers, including Lucifer, to undermine the well-being of France.
What Marie Antoinette really wore