How Marie Antoinette became the most fashionable queen in history

Lon­don — 

Marie Antoinette died over 230 years ago. But in the mod­ern day, the teen queen’s pres­ence remains wide­ly felt.

A‑listers from Kylie Jen­ner to Miley Cyrus have embod­ied her like­ness for fash­ion mag­a­zines, wear­ing diaphanous frocks or tow­er­ing wigs sur­round­ed by a selec­tion of teeth-rot­ting con­fec­tionery. Last year, Chap­pell Roan per­formed at the Lol­la­palooza music fes­ti­val dressed as Marie Antoinette in a crimped wig and Roco­co gown — reviv­ing a pop star trope that began with Madon­na at the 1990 MTV Awards. Fash­ion design­ers such as John Gal­liano, Karl Lager­feld, Vivi­enne West­wood and Alessan­dro Michele have all mined the roy­al for inspi­ra­tion. For the 2016 Fen­ty x Puma col­lec­tion, Rihan­na — who is the glob­al ambas­sador and cre­ative direc­tor — imag­ined what the 18th cen­tu­ry fig­ure might wear to the gym. The last queen con­sort of France has even had her “beau­ty secrets” pub­lished in Vogue, in hon­or of her 262nd birth­day.

Much like Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe or Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette has evolved beyond being a his­tor­i­cal fig­ure to become a con­cept. Her image is now short­hand for beau­ty, deca­dence, rebel­lion, and misog­y­ny. This week, the memo­ri­al­iza­tion con­tin­ues at London’s Vic­to­ria & Albert Muse­um, which is stag­ing the UK’s first-ever exhi­bi­tion on the fash­ion­able queen.

Marie Antoinette has pro­vid­ed inspi­ra­tion for count­less design­ers, includ­ing John Gal­liano. Gal­liano recre­at­ed Roco­co French fin­ery and piled-high hair for his Fall-Win­ter 2000 cou­ture show at Dior. 

Marie Antoinette was a fash­ion and style icon in her own time, but there had nev­er been an exhi­bi­tion that real­ly looked at that incred­i­ble lega­cy,” Sarah Grant, the exhibition’s cura­tor, told CNN. Antoinette’s court was crowd­ed with hair­dressers, dress­mak­ers and milliners, all work­ing to cre­ate the lav­ish styles that defined the late 18th-cen­tu­ry French fash­ion scene. Those trend­set­ting choic­es not only made Antoinette a promi­nent style icon, but also gave her the pow­er to influ­ence soci­ety — lay­ing the ground­work for what one would con­sid­er “celebri­ty style” today.

Sofia Cop­po­la’s Oscar-win­ning 2006 film “Marie Antoinette,” based on the 2001 auto­bi­og­ra­phy by Anto­nia Fras­er, was a water­shed moment in the queen’s lega­cy

The film was a point of entry to the world of Antoinette for the design­er Jere­my Scott. “Sofia Coppola’s ren­di­tion is just so visu­al­ly beau­ti­ful,” he recalled to CNN over the phone. “The col­ors, the bon-bons.” For Scott, the empa­thy cap­tured by Dunst’s empa­thet­ic per­for­mance offered a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive of Antoinette. “I have a soft spot for her,” he said, laugh­ing that he would have even aid­ed her ill-fat­ed attempt to escape from Paris. “I would have been like, ‘Girl, hide here!’”