vetenskapochupplysning

Marie Antoinette was the queen of France (1774-1792), married to Louis XVI. Being the queen allowed her to have access to all the extravagant clothes and rich garments, with a budget that she didn’t seem to care about. It’s easy to say that Marie Antoinette was not only the queen of France, but also the queen of all shopaholics.

This woman had quite a few dresses, and we might think that these dresses are outrageously ugly but in those days her style was high fashion. The queen ordered the newest looks from the prestigious designer Rose Bertin, the leading Paris couturiere. The dress code was of course dresses at all times, often in soft pastel colors. Antoinette supported the avant-garde fashion, with the 3-foot high powdered hair and the extremely wide dresses. The dresses were so wide that when she was going to go through a doorstep she had to turn 90 degrees and walk sideways to be able to go through. Under the heavy dresses she had to wear long, unbelievably tight corset.

Antoinette had a kind of corset that a called “the grand corps”. It was only worn by her, and other noble women could wear it on a special occasion. This corset was stiffer that the other types of corsets (as if they weren’t stiff enough?) and it made eating breathing and moving hard. The queen was known for her rebellious ways when it came to wearing the grand corps, she refused it, but can you blame her? Fortunately for her she was skinny enough that she didn’t need a corset, therefore she would often go without.

I can’t imagine walking around in corsets that tight and dresses that big. In those days women had to wear it every day, all the time. Can you imagine coming home from school and not putting on your sweatpants and instead putting on a corset and a 60 pound dress? As I mentioned, the corsets make it harder to eat, breathe and move, this is because it’s incredibly tight and presses all your organs together. This means that it’s not only unbelievably uncomfortable but it is also medically dangerous. Thank god that the world has developed in a way that allows us to be comfortable when wearing clothes, and not risking death (because of the corsets).

Even though I wouldn’t want to walk around in those dresses I would like to try one. Personally I think that these dresses are a work of art. All the time and effort the designers put into their creations is visible. You can see that her style reflects in today’s modern fashion. Designers like John Galliano (for Dior), made a collection reflecting Marie Antoinette’s dresses. Some of the big fashion houses create pieces with small details reflecting 18^th century fashion like Alexander McQueen. You don’t even have the look that far, even H&M takes after a bit of that old fashion, for example sunbonnets. The renaissance fashion has had a big impact on today’s fashion, but it has developed a lot, and I think that we all are grateful for that.

Kimia Rezaei