17 October 2025
Vision of excess and beauty
4 minutes
The V&A’s new exhibition ‘Marie Antoinette Style’ captures the former Queen of France’s lavish style that still influences fashion today.
(Image: Portrait de Marie-Antoinette à la rose, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun © Château de Versailles, Dist. Grand Palais RMN / Christophe Fouin.)
A few years back Marie Antoinette’s bracelets were sold for a record-breaking £6 million at a Geneva auction.
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The Queen of France had stashed them in a wooden chest before she was beheaded during the French Revolution in 1793. The precious jewellery was smuggled out of the country and remained within her family for two centuries. Each exquisite bracelet had three strings of diamonds with 112 gems, each weighing 97grams, and it was at that point I became interested in Marie Antoinette, probably the most controversial queen in history. She was certainly a fashion icon and shaped design, fine and decorative arts, interiors and gardens, exerting her style over more than two and a half centuries of fashion. At the V&A’s new exhibition ‘Marie Antoinette Style’ her lavish, feminine style is demonstrated through 250 items, including loans never seen before outside France, which explore the origins and revivals of style shaped by the French queen. On display are rare personal items including the Queen’s silk slippers, jewels from her private collection, richly embellished fragments of a court dress and the final note Marie Antoinette wrote before she died, on a blank page in her prayer book. The queen’s dinner service from Petit Trianon, her private home in the grounds of Versailles and her armchair from the V&A’s collection with Marie Antoinette’s monogram and items from her toilette case are also on show. (Image: Marie Antoinette’s bracelets. Credit Christie’s) |
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(Image: Marie-Antoinette's chair set © Victoria and Albert Museum, London) |
(Image: One slipper belonging to Marie Antoinette beaded pink silk. Photo: CC0 Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris) |
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(Image: Marie-Antoinette's Pearl jewels. Heidi Horten Collection. © Sotheby's / Bridgeman Images) |
(Image: Bracelet clasps, France, Gold with brilliant cut diamonds, central plaques of blue paste (glass). © Victoria and Albert Museum, London) |
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In the 1880s and 1890s elements of Marie Antoinette’s style became the ‘French’ or ‘French Revival’ style – the dominant style in Britain and North America for more than 50 years. English collectors sought to acquire objects, furniture and mementoes associated with the queen and important collections of 18th century French art were formed. The queen's image came to embody escapism and beauty, as well as decadence and debauchery. Objects and artworks illustrate this shifting narrative through the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, including the evening dress designs of couturiers such as Jeanne Lanvin and the Boué Soeurs, alongside luminous watercolour illustrations by Golden Age illustrators Erté, George Barbier and Edmund Dulac. Alongside is a display of contemporary clothing including couture pieces by designers Moschino, Dior, Chanel and Vivienne Westwood as well as costumes made for film including Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst, and shoes designed by Manolo Blahnik. (Image: Boué Soeurs (Sylvie and Jeanne Boué) robe de style. © Designmuseum Denmark / Photo: Pernille Klemp) |
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(Image: Film still from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. Photo courtesy of I WANT CANDY LLC. and Zoetrope Corp) |
(Image: Antonietta, 2005 by Manolo Blahnik.) |
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A replica of the Boehmer and Bassenge diamond necklace, from the Diamond Necklace Affair of 1784-85, when Cardinal Rohan intended to give Marie Antoinette a luxurious diamond necklace to regain her favour but was tricked by imposter Comtesse de La Motte posing as the queen. Although Marie-Antoinette was innocent, the scandal at the French court damaged her reputation, fuelling public discontent with the monarchy and contributed to the rise of the French Revolution. The original necklace was stolen, broken up and sold in Bond Street and the replica sits alongside the Sutherland diamond necklace from the V&A collection, thought to be made from the original diamonds. (Image: The Sutherland Diamonds, comprising diamond necklace with two additional diamond-set sections. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
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‘A woman whose power to fascinate has never ebbed’
Sarah Grant, ‘Marie Antoinette Style’ curator, said: “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.
“This exhibition explores that style and the figure at its centre, using a range of exquisite objects belonging to Marie Antoinette. This is the design legacy of an early modern celebrity and the story of a woman whose power to fascinate has never ebbed.
“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.”
Marie Antoinette Style runs at V&A South Kensington, Lonon until March 22, 2026.
Tickets at vam.ac.uk
Insurance advice
We are frequently asked to organise cover for collections, both large and small, as well as jewellery, antiques, coins, stamps, toys, gothic locks, netsuke, toothpicks – the things we are asked to find cover for are as varied, fascinating and idiosyncratic as our clients.
It’s not always necessary to have a bespoke policy, but it’s important you understand whether your home insurance policy provides you with the cover you need to fully protect your collection. Providing advice is at the heart of everything we do, so we always offer clear, sensible, and independent advice about what our clients should insure and how. We can also point you in the direction of the best valuation experts and then arrange a policy tailor-made to suit you.
To speak to our specialist team, call 020 8256 4901 or email privateclients@howdeninsurance.co.uk