In London, the V&A’s new blockbuster fashion exhibition, the eagerly awaited “Marie Antoinette Style,” feels almost like a séance. It has everything you’d expect from a lavish, couture-filled reexamination of the extravagant French queen—pomp and ceremony, stunning gowns, sparkling jewels, impossibly elegant furnishings, luminous portraits, and items that have never before left Versailles—but, even more remarkably, it manages to evoke her spirit in all its complexity.
“Marie Antoinette’s legacy is most obvious in fashion and style, and that was true in her own time as well,” says the exhibition’s curator, Dr. Sarah Grant, ahead of the opening. “She also influenced decorative arts, music, gardening—so many areas through her patronage. But I think there’s something very intimate about clothes and accessories, and that felt like the key to creating a more personal connection to her story.”
And it works. Visitors first encounter the queen in a fittingly powder-pink opening room, with checkered floors reminiscent of Versailles, through a portrait of her at age 22, draped in silks and bows by her favorite painter, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Then, you move into the first of several showstopping spaces: a grand, mirrored room aglow with glittering light fixtures, immersing you in 14-year-old Marie’s life at court in 1770.
This room features extraordinary 18th-century gowns—elaborate creations with wide, exaggerated skirts, florals, embroidery, endless ruffles, creamy silks, and pink candy-stripe patterns—but none more impressive than an incredibly detailed brocaded silk and silver thread wedding gown, with a bodice that looks almost carved from stone. The mannequins here are smaller and more childlike, a poignant reminder of Marie’s youth.
However, these dresses aren’t actually Marie’s—they’re styles she made popular. “Not a single complete gown of hers survives,” Grant explains. After the Revolution, “her wardrobe was looted, pieces were cut up and sold, and everything was scattered.”
As a result, putting together the artifacts for “Marie Antoinette Style” required extensive detective work. Using records of Marie’s favorite fabrics, styles, and silhouettes, along with paintings, prints, and her own 1782 “wardrobe book”—displayed here with fabric swatches and notes—pieces were carefully chosen to reflect what she would have worn. The wedding dress, for example, is strikingly similar to Marie’s own, rather than the original or an exact replica. “It’s as close as we can get to seeing what Marie Antoinette would have looked like on her wedding day,” Grant confirms.
Far from feeling like a compromise, this approach makes the items that truly belonged to Marie—marked on exhibition labels with the queen’s distinctive monogram—feel even more special: a delicate black lace collar, dainty beaded shoes, and two richly decorated fragments of court gowns, designed to shimmer in candlelight. “Having these two surviving samples,” says Grant, “gives you a sense of how exceptional her gowns must have been.”
Next, the exhibition delves into her jewels. Marie’s personal jewelry was smuggled out of France and kept by her only surviving child, Marie Thérèse. In “Marie Antoinette Style,” many of these pieces are reunited with Marie’s own elegant jewelry box for the first time since her death. You’ll find dazzling diamonds, brooches, and pendants here, after which the exhibition continues…The exhibition takes you through galleries exploring Marie Antoinette’s hairstyles, the work of her hairdresser Monsieur Léonard, and her stylist Rose Bertin. A replica of the necklace from the infamous “Diamond Necklace Affair” is also on display.
Visitors can admire bejeweled fans, panels of 18th-century animal print fabric, letters in the queen’s own handwriting, and a section dedicated to her retreat at the Petit Trianon. This area is filled with floral-printed furniture, porcelain plates, Toile de Jouy textiles, delicate pianos, and—amusingly—gardening tools that were only used for staged performances of pastoral life.
The next section focuses on scents, a particular passion of Marie’s. “Versailles was heavily fragranced,” explains Grant. “Many reported that it smelled unpleasant due to the crowds, chamber pots, and cesspits. Marie Antoinette burned scents in her room and was perfumed from head to toe. It was also a way of projecting her allure and status.”
To bring this to life, four faux marble busts are infused with fragrances that tell Marie’s story. The first combines beeswax, smoke, oak, and body odor, evoking a masquerade ball in the Hall of Mirrors. The second, with orris root, rose, lavender, tuberose, violet, and musk, recreates the scent of her powder and rouge, placing you at her dressing table. The third captures her garden at the Petit Trianon with notes of grass, lilac, roses, and honeysuckle.
The fourth scent is a stark contrast: mildew, cold stone, sewage, and the polluted Seine, transporting visitors to Marie’s damp, cramped prison cell. Leaning in, you can detect a hint of juniper—a fragrance she requested to purify the air. It’s almost as if you can feel her presence, just out of reach. “We wanted to counter all that beauty with reality,” says Grant.
That reality continues in the next section, which could be called “The Cancellation of Marie Antoinette.” It examines her notoriety in the 1780s through satirical and degrading drawings that depicted her as an insatiable satyr—shown as a cartoon hyena, in a tryst with a royal guard, or passionately kissing her lady-in-waiting, the Duchesse de Polignac (played by Rose Byrne in Sofia Coppola’s film).
Ominous, booming music then leads into a long, blood-red corridor, symbolizing the end of Marie’s life in 1793 at age 37. This room is the most moving: it includes sketches of her imprisonment and execution, the final note she wrote in her prayer book begging for mercy and thinking of her children, the actual guillotine blade that beheaded her, images of a wax bust of her severed head, and a medallion containing locks of her hair.
The centerpiece is Marie’s plain white linen chemise, worn in prison. It seems to float as if her ghost still inhabits it, and it’s the only complete garment of hers on display. It forces us to imagine this iconic figure in her final moments, stripped down to her bare essence.
“Our incredible textile conservation team developed special magnets to mount her chemise like that,” Grant explains. “It has the quality of an apparition. It was very important for us to make her death feel more real.”Otherwise, it’s just a sentence in a history book. But to see her prison clothes, her actual hair, her final note—it makes everything feel real and tangible. It’s also significant because her personal style played a role in her downfall, in a way—it helped lead her to the guillotine.
The last two rooms explore this style legacy. The first focuses on how the queen was remembered from the Victorian era through the 1940s. Here, you’ll find two standout Art Deco evening dresses from the 1920s by Jeanne Lanvin, inspired by Marie Antoinette, that are not to be missed. Then comes the centerpiece—a classic example of the breathtaking, gown-filled final rooms that make the V&A’s fashion exhibitions so famous.
The exhibition’s stunning final room is packed with contemporary fashion. Turn right, and you’ll see Kate Moss lounging at the Ritz in baby blue Alexander McQueen, captured by Tim Walker for Vogue. Turn left, and you’ll find a display of jewel-toned Manolo Blahnik shoes made especially for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Suddenly, you’re surrounded by costume designer Milena Canonero’s Oscar-winning creations for that film, alongside Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior couture from the BBC’s Marie Antoinette series, a silk dress worn by Old Hollywood star Norma Shearer in the 1938 film, and Elle Fanning’s bright red Toile de Jouy dress from The Great.
On the high-fashion side, there’s plenty to see: John Galliano’s Dior couture, lace pieces by Vivienne Westwood, bold Moschino designs (including those cake-inspired dresses), ruffled Erdem gowns, Alessandro Michele’s new Valentino, a bow-covered Meadham Kirchhoff outfit, and a blush-pink satin jumpsuit and lace fan from Rihanna’s Fenty X Puma line, lent by the superstar herself.
There’s even a feathered Chanel creation by Karl Lagerfeld, made for Kirsten Dunst’s Marie Antoinette-themed Vogue shoot in September 2006. All around are reproductions of Ladurée macaron towers and pastries, which inspired the pastel palette of Coppola’s film, as well as Marie Antoinette’s Folly, a detailed porcelain wall installation by artist Beth Katleman.
John Galliano’s Marie Antoinette-inspired Dior pieces sit beside Maria Grazia Chiuri’s custom Dior couture for the BBC series, with Beth Katleman’s Marie Antoinette’s Folly visible in the background.
Selecting dresses for this section was one of the toughest parts of finalizing “Marie Antoinette Style.” “We started with 500 objects and ended up with 250,” sighs Grant. “We simply didn’t have the space. We could have displayed entire Chanel and Galliano collections, but we focused on the most iconic pieces—some playful, others elegant and classic.”
One blue Chanel look from the “Coco Rock” collection, which nods to Marie Antoinette’s English riding coats, didn’t make the cut—Grant still thinks about it sometimes, but there was so much that did.
Among her favorites is a Galliano Dior gown from the “Freud or Fetish” collection. “It has a guillotine on one side and the Petit Trianon on the other. The wig has mice crawling in and out, and she’s designed like a wind-up doll, with a mechanism on her back and stuffing coming out. It’s incredibly clever.” This is one of the few exhibitions where you can get close enough to appreciate all those details.
In the end, Grant is most proud of securing all the jewelry for “Marie Antoinette Style,” much of it from private collections. Some pieces “had only just come up for sale, so convincing the new owners to lend them was quite a feat.”“They had just bought them at auction and barely owned them for a day, yet they still let us borrow them—that was remarkable,” Grant said, referring to the generosity of the lenders.
Equally precious is Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s portrait of Marie Antoinette from Versailles, in which she holds a rose. “They call it their ‘Mona Lisa,’” Grant noted. “I was amazed when they agreed to part with it, because it’s the most requested object in all of Versailles.” Grant gave a guilty smile. “People will go to Versailles expecting to see it, but it’ll be here. I do feel bad… but it’s also amazing.”
“Marie Antoinette Style” is now on view at London’s V&A Museum.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of helpful FAQs about the VAs Marie Antoinette exhibition
General Information
Q What is this exhibition actually about
A Its a deep dive into the personal style fashion and image of Marie Antoinette exploring how she used clothing and objects to craft her identity both as a queen and as a private individual
Q Where is it and how long will it be open
A Its at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London Be sure to check the VAs official website for exact dates as exhibitions are usually open for a few months
Q Do I need to book tickets in advance
A Yes its highly recommended Major exhibitions like this often sell out so booking your timed entry slot online ahead of your visit is the best way to guarantee entry
For FirstTime Visitors Beginners
Q I dont know much about fashion history Will I still enjoy it
A Absolutely The exhibition tells a fascinating human story about power rebellion and tragedy through incredible objects Its about more than just clothes its about a person and her era
Q What kind of things will I see there
A Youll see a stunning collection of items including her actual dresses accessories like shoes and fans personal letters portraits and furniture that belonged to her
Q Is it suitable for children
A Older children and teenagers with an interest in history or royalty might find it engaging but it is primarily an exhibition focused on historical artifacts and may not hold the attention of younger children
For Enthusiasts Advanced Visitors
Q Does the exhibition feature any items that have never been displayed before
A Yes the VA has gathered loans from collections across France and Austria including some of Marie Antoinettes personal garments and possessions that are being shown in the UK for the first time
Q How does the exhibition address the myth versus the reality of Marie Antoinette
A A key part of the exhibition focuses on deconstructing the popular myths and showing how her extravagant style was used by her enemies to create a negative public image that contributed to her downfall
Q Is there a focus on her dressmakers like Rose Bertin
A