Queen of Fashion What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinettes “Revolution in Dress,” covering each phase of the queens tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailless rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt “unqueenly” outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her.

Webers queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion—the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs—was also the means of her undoing. Webers book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of historys most controversial figures. 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 other publications include 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.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

A Washington Post Best History Book of the Year

Like Princess Diana and Jacqueline Onassis, Marie Antoinette was an icon of style, a fashion muse, a woman who used clothing to command attention. But few biographers have paid close attention to her wardrobe's impact. Now, in her sumptuously detailed Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber tells the story of Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," which helped make (and unmake) her reputation, altering the very course of French history. When the fourteen-year-old Austrian arch-duchess first arrived at the Palace of Versailles to become dauphine, rigid tradition governed what she wore, when she wore it, even who put it on her person. Her required wardrobe included twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts and organ-crushing whalebone corsets. But when she became queen, Marie Antoinette, seeking to establish her own royal style as a way to seduce the public (and distract attention from her failure to conceive). From her male riding gear to her white furs and diamonds, her monumental pouf hairstyles (re-creating verdant gardens or battleships), and her intricate disguises for decadent balls, Marie Antoinette's creations announced her "Minister of Fashion" Rose Bertin (the designer whose Le Grand Mogol boutique was a mecca for the well-heeled), she began a fashion frenzy. "Leaking" news of her clothing preferences to newspapers, she colluded in the creation of her own finely tuned image. Traveling regularly to Paris, she caused sensations among city dwellers unaccustomed to seeing kings' wives dressed untraditionally. She became "the cynosure of every eye," holding women—from princesses to servant girls—enthralled. But she would go too far. Inspired by Rousseau and her time in the parklike setting of the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette began to sport provocative, "radical chic" chemises and other unqueenly outfits that fueled rumors and incited scandals that helped fuel the Revolution and bring down the monarchy. Surprisingly, many of these styles would later be adopted by the same revolutionaries who put the Queen to death. "Caroline Weber weaves her portrait of Marie Antoinette—and pre-revolutionary France—from the very fabric of the Queen's wardrobe. Here is fashion at its most cut-throat and history at its most sumptuous; an original, arresting tale, of high stakes all around."—Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation "In Queen of Fashion, her suspenseful, remarkably well-documented and surprisingly humanizing account of the role style played in Marie Antoinette's fate and legacy, Caroline Weber, who teaches at Barnard College and is an expert on the Terror, adds texture, shimmer and depth to an icon most of us thought we knew already."—Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times Book Review "Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion examines Marie Antoinette from an arresting angle—her theatrical persona as a fashion innovator. Forced to jockey for position, French courtiers were slaves of fashion, while queens tended to be more modest and reserved. Fashion flash was practiced instead by the kings' semi-official mistresses—a role that Weber demonstrates was borrowed by Marie Antoinette (whose husband had no mistress) and that eventually compromised her reputation and made it easier for scurrilous pamphleteers to caricature her as a whore."—Camille Paglia, The Chronicle of Higher Education

"It is always gratifying to discover how much a fashion statement can mean, and Weber's account of the transition from ancient regime to the Republic from a sartorial point of view is a perceptive work of scholarship that helps to explain the transcendent importance of fashion to French culture."—The New Yorker "Entertaining and thought-provoking . . . Caroline Weber's book is absorbing, fascinating, a wonderful display of grace and expertise, full of telling details."—Hilary Mantel, The New York Review of Books "As Caroline Weber demonstrates with dazzling detail in Queen of Fashion, when it came to Marie's wardrobe, more was better and too much was never enough: Her pearl bracelets, jewel-flecked gowns, ruffled skirts, and fur-trimmed headdresses launched a thousand imitators hoping to borrow even a little of her awe-inspiring glamour. Weber's book is an ode to the art of dressmaking at its most fantastic, a heady, gorgeous glimpse into the past . . . Queen of Fashion is as richly imagined as the gowns it describes . . . It's nothing short of stunning"—The Washington Post "A delightful revelation. The delight is due to author Caroline Weber's intelligence and insight—as if a keen scholar was writing for Vanity Fair. The revelation results from the way the writer imbues a much-reviled and seemingly well-known figure with great empathy . . . Weber dishes up titillating intricacies of French court life (the palace at Versailles was dirty; many nobles had poor hygiene) . . . Readers who fancy excellent writing, power plays and prodigious research will enjoy Queen of Fashion. In humanizing Marie Antoinette, Weber recasts history—a splendid accomplishment. This trek in Marie Antoinette's bejeweled slippers turns the callous and frivolous 'cake queen' into a figure of sympathy."—The Cleveland Plain Dealer "A serious work of social history. Marie Antoinette may not have invented the politics of costume, but she understood, although she often miscalculated, the importance of manipulating her public image."—The Boston Globe "A work of careful scholarship . . . In many ways, though, Weber improves upon [Antonia] Fraser . . . Queen of Fashion tells a better story . . . you keep turning the pages even when you know how it ends."—Chicago Sun-Times "A brilliant of the commonly held view of Marie Antoinette. By looking, in fascinating detail, at what she wore—at the very fripperies that caused so many of her critics to underestimate her political aims and importance—Weber reassesses her historical role and creates a mesmerizing portrait of the doomed queen."—The London Telegraph "Weber is a serious historian, and nearly every sentence of her account is footnoted to one of her many sources, some not tapped before . . . but what's most welcome is her use of her own feeling for clothes and their importance. This popular subject has been trivially belabored by numerous cultural-studies academics with no personal stake in dress history or in actual garments. It's refreshing to find solid interpretive work and historical responsibility in an impassioned book on clothing's power over perception and self-perception."—Slate "Caroline Weber weaves her portrait of Marie Antoinette—and pre-revolutionary France—from the very fabric of the Queen's wardrobe. Here is fashion at its most cut-throat and history at its most sumptuous; an original, arresting tale, of high stakes all around."—Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation "Queen of Fashion is a marvelous read.  Fascinating in its rich detail yet also deeply moving, no other book about the tragic Marie Antoinette so captures her fatal flair for fashion. Caroline Weber not only combines fresh insights with new material, she also has a dazzling style of writing that most authors would kill for.  This is a book to be read and reread and then passed among friends."—Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana   "Caroline Weber deftly details the volatile interplay of fashion and politics during Marie Antoinettes reign as a sartorial trend-setter. A witty account of fashion as dynastic high stakes, this rereading of the lead-up to the French Revolution sees the queens vestimentary caprices as politically motivated, an ill-fated approach to her personal disenfranchisement. An original look at a turning point in European history."—Carolyn Burke, author of Lee Miller: A Life "As Caroline Weber demonstrates with dazzling detail in Queen of Fashion, when it came to Marie's wardrobe, more was better and too much was never enough: Weber's book is an ode to the art of dressmaking at its most fantastic, a heady, gorgeous glimpse into the past . . . Queen of Fashion is as richly imagined as the gowns it describes . . .   As sociology . . . it's nothing short of stunning."—Suzanne DAmato, Orlando Sentinel "Caroline Weber's historical imagination and zest for fashion make for a sparkling take on the tragic, trendy Queen. Scholarly and entertaining—a brilliant, wholly original book."—Kennedy Fraser, author of The Power of Style "[Caroline Weber's] comprehensive, entertaining latest work suggests that she has studied just about every other important history—academic and popular—covering the reign of Louis XVI and his controversial consort . . . [T]he fashion segments are fun to read and researched with consummate attention to detail, as 80 pages of endnotes certify. When the royal couple is finally imprisoned, the author does a splendid job of explaining how their political fall was mirrored in their dress. Her account of the queen's final appearance—all in glorious white—on the ride to the guillotine carries enormous poignancy."—Kirkus Reviews "Tales of intrigue dot every page . . . as do the foibles of commoners and royalty. Bold and engaging"—Booklist "As this prodigiously researched, deliciously detailed study of the doomed royal's fashion statements demonstrates, her masculine equestrian garb, ostentatious costumes for masked balls, high Parisian hairdos and faux country-girl gear were bold bids for political power and personal freedom in a suffocating realm where a queen was merely a breeder and living symbol of her spouse's glorious reign . . . The generously illustrated history by Weber posits that the queen's fashion obsession wasn't about narcissism and frivolity but self-assertion; even at the guillotine she controlled her image with a radiantly white ensemble."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 "Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion examines Marie Antoinette from an arresting angle--her theatrical persona as a fashion innovator. Forced to jockey for position, French courtiers were slaves of fashion, while queens tended to be more modest and reserved. Fashion flash was practiced instead by the kings' semi-official mistresses--a role that Weber demonstrates was borrowed by Marie Antoinette (whose husband had no mistress) and that eventually compromised her reputation and made it easier for scurrilous pamphleteers to caricature her as a whore."--Camille Paglia, The Chronicle of Higher Education

"It is always gratifying to discover how much a fashion statement can mean, and Weber's account of the transition from ancien regime to the Republic from a sartorial point of view is a perceptive work of scholarship that helps to explain the transcendent importance of fashion to French culture."--The New Yorker

"Wickedly enjoyable."--Horatio Silva, The New York Times Style Magazine

"Prodigiously researched [and] deliciously detailed . . . The generously illustrated history by Weber posits that the queen's fashion obsession wasn't about narcissism and frivolity, but self-assertion; even at the guillotine she controlled her image with a radiantly white ensemble. Who knew that in 1909 one could have a dear friend give you a Brazilian shave?"--Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"Comprehensive, entertaining . . . the fashion segments are fun to read and researched with consummate attention to detail. When the royal couple is finally imprisoned, the author does a splendid job of explaining how their political fall was mirrored in their dress. Her account of the queen's final appearance--all in glorious white--on the ride to the guillotine carries enormous poignancy. A briskly written account of a time when high fashion took death's hand and danced."--Kirkus Reviews

"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

and#8212;Theand#160;New York Times "Bordoand#8217;s sharp reading of Boleyniana and her clear affection for this proud, unusual woman make this an entertaining, provocative read."

and#8212;The Boston Globe "A fascinating and accessible study of Anne Boleyn's history and popular myth."

and#8212;Shelf Awareness "A feast of feminism and historyand#8230;fascinates readers, and informs and entertains along the way."

and#8212;Roanoke Times "Delightfully cheeky, solidly researchedand#8230;[Bordo] uses her good sense and academic training to shrewdly chip away at historical commentary, which has hardened speculation into supposed "facts."

and#8212;The Daily Beast "Engrossingand#8230;blending biography, cultural history and literary analysis with a creative writerand#8217;s knack for narrative and detail."

and#8212;Louisville Leo Weekly "Rivettingand#8230;Bordoand#8217;s eloquent study not only recovers Anne Boleyn for our times but also demonstrates the ways in which legends grow out of the faintest wisps of historical fact, and develop into tangled webs of fact and fiction that become known as the truth. "

and#8212;Bookpage

"Bordoand#8217;s skills are sharp as ever as she compares narratives from history and popular culture, revealing the bits of truth we know to be for certain about one of history's most elusive characters."

and#8212;Bitch Media and#12288; "The perfect book for anyone interested in Anne Boleyn. Highly readable, interesting and thought provoking."

and#8212;The Anne Boleyn Files "Susan Bordo'sand#12288;Boleynand#12288;did the impossible - it made me excited to read about the Tudors again while reminding me to approach history and historical fiction with curiosity and a questioning mind."

and#8212;Historical Fiction Notebook "The University of Kentucky humanities chair does a superb job of separating fact from fiction in contemporary accounts of Boleynand#8217;s life, before deftly deconstructing the myriad and contradictory portraits of her that have arisen in the centuries since her death. . . . The young queen has been the source of fascination for nearly half a millennium, and her legacy continues; this engaging portrait culminates with an intriguing exploration of Boleynand#8217;s recent reemergence in pop culture." and#8212;Publishers Weekly "A great read for Boleyn fans and fanatics alike"

and#8212;Kirkus Reviews "Susan Bordo astutely re-examines Anneand#8217;s life and death anew and peels away the layers of untruth and myth that have accumulated since. The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a refreshing, iconoclastic and moving look at one of historyand#8217;s most intriguing women. It is rare to find a book that rouses one to scholarly glee, feminist indignation and empathetic tears, but this is such a book."

and#8212;Suzannah Lipscomb, author of 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII "If you think you know who Anne Boleyn was, think again. In this rigorously argued yet deliciously readable book, Susan Bordo bursts through the dead weight of cultural stereotypes and historical clichand#233;s to disentangle the fictions that we have created from the fascinating, elusive woman that Henry VIII triedand#8212;unsuccessfullyand#8212;to erase from historical memory. This is a book that has long been needed to set the record straight, and Bordo knocked it out of the park. Brava!"

and#8212;Robin Maxwell, national bestselling author of Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn and Mademoiselle Boleyn and#8220;By turns sassy and serious, playful and profound, Susan Bordo cuts through the layers of legend, fantasy, and untruth that history and culture have attached to Anne Boleyn, while proving that the facts about that iconic queen are every bit as intriguing as the fictions.and#8221;

and#8212; Caroline Weber, author of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

"In The Creation of Anne Boleyn, we watch Anne Boleyn the woman transform into Anne Boleyn the legendand#8212;a fascinating journey. Susan Bordo covers Anne's historical footprints and her afterlife in art, fiction, poetry, theater and cinema, each change reflecting the concerns of a different era. Meticulous, thoughtful, persuasiveand#8212;and fun."

and#8212;Margaret George, author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I

A Review From Open Letters Monthly:

"'Why is Anne Boleyn so fascinating?' Susan Bordo asks at the beginning of her richly engrossing new book The Creation of Anne Boleyn. 'Maybe we donand#8217;t have to go any further than the obvious. The story of her rise and fall is as elementally satisfying and#8211; and scriptwise, not very different from and#8211; a Lifetime movie: a long-suffering, postmenopausal wife; an unfaithful husband and a clandestine affair with a younger, sexier woman; a moment of glory for the mistress; then lust turned into loathing, plotting, and murder as the cycle comes full circle.' The invocation of the syrupy American cable network Lifetime is both a neat stroke and a warning flag and#8211; readers traumatized by flippant pseudo-history grow hyper-sensitive to such showbiz namedropping, and Bordoand#8217;s credentials as a feminist scholar can, in such circumstances, increase the fear of grating anachronisms (the past was a different country, a wise man once said, hardly needing to add, "They called and#8216;applesand#8217; and#8216;orangesand#8217; there"). Nightmare visions of 'Anne the Party Grrrl' loom, hardly alleviated by Bordoand#8217;s puckish choice of section titles ('In Love (Or Something Like It),' 'A Perfect Storm,' etc.).

But such worries are dispelled early on in The Creation of Anne Boleyn and never return. Bordo spends the first part of her book, 'Queen, Interrupted,' recounting much of what we know about the actual history of Anneand#8217;s rise, reign, and ruin. Itand#8217;s nimbly done, managing the small miracle of not feeling redundant despite the staggering number of times the story has been told before. But itand#8217;s the bookand#8217;s second part, 'Recipes for 'Anne Boleyn',' and its third part, 'An Anne For All Seasons,' that gaily raise this book to the status of something quite memorable; itand#8217;s in these parts that Bordo gets at the real heart of her subject and#8211; not Anne Boleyn, but rather the infinite variety of cultural reconstructions of Anne.

Her enthusiasm is infectious, and her range is impressive, covering a dozen major novels and#8211; from Francis Hackettand#8217;s 1939 novel Queen Anne Boleyn to Margaret Campbell Barnesand#8217; Brief Gaudy Hour (1949), Norah Loftsand#8217; The Concubine (1963), and more modern bestsellers like Phlippa Gregoryand#8217;s The Other Boleyn Girl and Hilary Manteland#8217;s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (partisans may wish sheand#8217;d spared a mention for Suzannah Dunnand#8217;s sly and extremely impressive 2005 novel The Queen of Subtleties) and#8211; and all the major film and stage interpretations of Anneand#8217;s tempestuous relationship with Henry VIII, including the Charles Laughton camp-fest The Private Life of Henry VIII, the BBC mini-series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, the great 1969 movie Anne of the Thousand Days, and of course Showtimeand#8217;s vamping, moronic The Tudors. Itand#8217;s a shrewd strategy: now that Bordo has supplied her readers with the history, she can thrill and provoke them by citing the countless ways all these adaptations get the history wrong:

Anne of the Thousand Days, in addition to numerous other alterations of history, has that invented and#8211; yet somehow perfect and#8211; scene in the Tower between Anne and Henry. The Private Life of Henry VIII turns Anne of Cleves into a wisecracking cardsharp who is physically disgusted by Henry rather than (as history tells it) the other way around. A Man for All Seasons neglects to mention that Thomas More, besides being a witty intellectual, also burned quite a few heretics and was apparently not quite the devoted husband he appeared to be. The BBC production of The Six Wives of Henry VIII barely notes that there was a conflict of authority between Henry and the Church, beyond the issue of the divorce; its actually much more the wife-centered, 'feminized' history that [David] Starkey berates than [Showtime's] The Tudors, which spends a lot of time on the more 'masculine' (and for Starkey, historically central) end of things: diplomatic skirmishes, wars, and court politics.

Half the fun of these segments of the book will be arguing with them. For instance, the claim that thereand#8217;s no dramatization of the conflict between king and Church in The Six Wives of Henry VIII is starkly wrong and#8211; indeed, itand#8217;s in the Jane Seymour episode of the series that its star Keith Michell gives one of his most passionate performances, on precisely the subject of Henryand#8217;s struggles with Rome. Likewise the sustained, extremely intelligent attention Bordo lavishes on The Tudors, and especially petite, slope-mouthed Natalie Dormer, whose Anne Boleyn is about as sexually alluring as a distracted basset hound: the reader might fundamentally disagree with the elevation of such an unworthy subject (so to speak), but the discussion itself is too interesting to forego (when Bordo interviews Genevieve Bujold, who shot to fame in Anne of the Thousand Days, the actress simply says 'Anne is mine').

Bordo charts the changes in Anneand#8217;s portrayal over the years, drawing up handy lists of historical errors, sparing nobody, not even Mantel, whose books come in for some sustained nit-picking (although nothing on the order of the full-dress deconstruction Gregory gets)(and yet itand#8217;s all done with such wonderful candor that it wouldnand#8217;t be surprising to learn the novelists themselves enjoyed the critiques). The focus of the book in these parts shimmers all over the fictional landscape, always with an acute eye:

The Tudors has replaced Charles Laughtonand#8217;s blustering, chicken-chomping buffoon with Jonathan Rhys Meyerand#8217;s lean, athletic bad boy. Wolf Hall exposes Thomas More as coldly, viciously pious and turns the ruthless, calculating Cromwell we know from depictions of his role in Anne Boleynand#8217;s death into a true and#8220;man for all seasonsand#8221;: warm, loyal, and opportunistic only because his survival requires it.

The Creation of Anne Boleyn creates in its readers the deep hunger for more of the same; itand#8217;ll be a cold-hearted reader indeed who doesnand#8217;t finish the book wishing Bordo would have expanded it into a big fat study of the history and fiction of all the wives and#8211; or better yet, of Anneand#8217;s own daughter, Queen Elizabeth I. But our author is something of an intellectual dynamo, and unlike poor Anne, sheand#8217;s got plenty of options."

Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," covering each phase of the queen's tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailles's rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly" outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her.

Weber's queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion--the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs--was also the means of her undoing. Weber's book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of history's most controversial figures.

Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinette's Revolution in Dress, covering each phase of the queen's tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailles's rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt unqueenly outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her.

Weber's queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion--the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs--was also the means of her undoing. Weber's book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of history's most controversial figures. 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 other publications include 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. A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Washington Post Best History Book of the Year Like Princess Diana and Jacqueline Onassis, Marie Antoinette was an icon of style, a fashion muse, a woman who used clothing to command attention. But few biographers have paid close attention to her wardrobe's impact. Now, in her sumptuously detailed Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber tells the story of Marie Antoinette's Revolution in Dress, which helped make (and unmake) her reputation, altering the very course of French history. When the fourteen-year-old Austrian arch-duchess first arrived at the Palace of Versailles to become dauphine, rigid tradition governed what she wore, when she wore it, even who put it on her person. Her required wardrobe included twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts and organ-crushing whalebone corsets. But when she became queen, Marie Antoinette, seeking to establish her own royal style as a way to seduce the public (and distract attention from her failure to conceive). From her male riding gear to her white furs and diamonds, her monumental pouf hairstyles (re-creating verdant gardens or battleships), and her intricate disguises for decadent balls, Marie Antoinette's creations announced her Minister of Fashion Rose Bertin (the designer whose Le Grand Mogol boutique was a mecca for the well-heeled), she began a fashion frenzy. Leaking news of her clothing preferences to newspapers, she colluded in the creation of her own finely tuned image. Traveling regularly to Paris, she caused sensations among city dwellers unaccustomed to seeing kings' wives dressed untraditionally. She became the cynosure of every eye, holding women--from princesses to servant girls--enthralled. But she would go too far. Inspired by Rousseau and her time in the parklike setting of the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette began to sport provocative, radical chic chemises and other unqueenly outfits that fueled rumors and incited scandals that helped fuel the Revolution and bring down the monarchy. Surprisingly, many of these styles would later be adopted by the same revolutionaries who put the Queen to death. Caroline Weber weaves her portrait of Marie Antoinette--and pre-revolutionary France--from the very fabric of the Queen's wardrobe. Here is fashion at its most cut-throat and history at its most sumptuous; an original, arresting tale, of high stakes all around.--Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation In Queen of Fashion, her suspenseful, remarkably well-documented and surprisingly humanizing account of the role style played in Marie Antoinette's fate and legacy, Caroline Weber, who teaches at Barnard College and is an expert on the Terror, adds texture, shimmer and depth to an icon most of us thought we knew already.--Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times Book Review Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion examines Marie Antoinette from an arresting angle--her theatrical persona as a fashion innovator. Forced to jockey for position, French courtiers were slaves of fashion, while queens tended to be more modest and reserved. Fashion flash was practiced instead by the kings' semi-official mistresses--a role that Weber demonstrates was borrowed by Marie Antoinette (whose husband had no mistress) and that eventually compromised her reputation and made it easier for scurrilous pamphleteers to caricature her as a whore.--Camille Paglia, The Chronicle of Higher Education

It is always gratifying to discover how much a fashion statement can mean, and Weber's account of the transition from ancient regime to the Republic from a sartorial point of view is a perceptive work of scholarship that helps to explain the transcendent importance of fashion to French culture.--The New Yorker Entertaining and thought-provoking . . . Caroline Weber's book is absorbing, fascinating, a wonderful display of grace and expertise, full of telling details.--Hilary Mantel, The New York Review of Books As Caroline Weber demonstrates with dazzling detail in Queen of Fashion, when it came to Marie's wardrobe, more was better and too much was never enough: Her pearl bracelets, jewel-flecked gowns, ruffled skirts, and fur-trimmed headdresses launched a thousand imitators hoping to borrow even a little of her awe-inspiring glamour. Weber's book is an ode to the art of dressmaking at its most fantastic, a heady, gorgeous glimpse into the past . . . Queen of Fashion is as richly imagined as the gowns it describes . . . It's nothing short of stunning--The Washington Post A delightful revelation. The delight is due to author Caroline Weber's intelligence and insight--as if a keen scholar was writing for Vanity Fair. The revelation results from the way the writer imbues a much-reviled and seemingly well-known figure with great empathy . . . Weber dishes up titillating intricacies of French court life (the palace at Versailles was dirty; many nobles had poor hygiene) . . . Readers who fancy excellent writing, power plays and prodigious research will enjoy Queen of Fashion. In humanizing Marie Antoinette, Weber recasts history--a splendid accomplishment. This trek in Marie Antoinette's bejeweled slippers turns the callous and frivolous 'cake queen' into a figure of sympathy.--The Cleveland Plain Dealer A serious work of social history. Marie Antoinette may not have invented the politics of costume, but she understood, although she often miscalculated, the importance of manipulating her public image.--The Boston Globe A work of careful scholarship . . . In many ways, though, Weber improves upon Antonia] Fraser . . . Queen of Fashion tells a better story . . . you keep turning the pages even when you know how it ends.--Chicago Sun-Times A brilliant of the commonly held view of Marie Antoinette. By looking, in fascinating detail, at what she wore--at the very fripperies that caused so many of her critics to underestimate her political aims and importance--Weber reassesses her historical role and creates a mesmerizing portrait of the doomed queen.--The London Telegraph Weber is a serious historian, and nearly every sentence of her account is footnoted to one of her many sources, some not tapped before . . . but what's most welcome is her use of her own feeling for clothes and their importance. This popular subject has been trivially belabored by numerous cultural-studies academics with no personal stake in dress history or in actual garments. It's refreshing to find solid interpretive work and historical responsibility in an impassioned book on clothing's power over perception and self-perception.--Slate Caroline Weber weaves her portrait of Marie Antoinette--and pre-revolutionary France--from the very fabric of the Queen's wardrobe. Here is fashion at its most cut-throat and history at its most sumptuous; an original, arresting tale, of high stakes all around.--Stacy Schiff, author of A Great Improvisation Queen of Fashion is a marvelous read. Fascinating in its rich detail yet also deeply moving, no other book about the tragic Marie Antoinette so captures her fatal flair for fashion. Caroline Weber not only combines fresh insights with new material, she also has a dazzling style of writing that most authors would kill for. This is a book to be read and reread and then passed among friends.--Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana Caroline Weber deftly details the volatile interplay of fashion and politics during Marie Antoinette's reign as a sartorial trend-setter. A witty account of fashion as dynastic high stakes, this rereading of the lead-up to the French Revolution sees the queen's vestimentary caprices as politically motivated, an ill-fated approach to her personal disenfranchisement. An original look at a turning point in European history.--Carolyn Burke, author of Lee Miller:

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.

Bordo also shows how generations of polemicists, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers imagined and re-imagined Anne: whore, martyr, cautionary tale, proto and#8220;mean girl,and#8221; feminist icon, and everything in between. In this lively book, Bordo steps off the well-trodden paths of Tudoriana to expertly tease out the human being behind the competing mythologies.

Susan Bordo, Otis A. Singletary Professor in the Humanities at University of Kentucky, is the author of Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, a book that is still widely read and assigned in classes today. During speaking tours for that book, she encountered many young men who asked, "What about us?" The result was The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. Her work has been translated into many languages and frequently reprinted in collections and writing textbooks. A popular public speaker, Susan lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and daughter, and teaches humanities and gender studies at the University of Kentucky.