Marie Antoinette (1755–1793), Queen of France, whose reputation as “the most fashionable queen in history” is rooted in the unique intersection of politics, culture, and aesthetics in late 18th-century Europe. Hers is a name that evokes a pastel-hued world of extravagance: silk gowns, towering hairstyles, satin shoes, sweet indulgences and courtly intrigue, overshadowed by the bloody Revolution that ended it all.
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| Book cover of Marie Antoinette Style published by the V&A to accompany the exhibition of the same name. Image courtesy of V&A |
Marie Antoinette's influence is lasting because she wasn’t just a passive consumer of fashion. She actively shaped tastes, helped redefine femininity and celebrity, and became a global symbol of luxury, beauty, and scandal.
Now the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London’s South Kensington will host the UK’s first major exhibition Marie Antoinette Style, set to open on 20 September 2025. Sponsored by luxury footwear house Manolo Blahnik, it will run until 22 March 2026, filling Galleries 38 and 39.
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| Film still from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst. . Photo courtesy of I WANT CANDY LLC. and Zoetrope Corp |
The exhibition will examine the enduring influence of the French queen, celebrated in her lifetime as a fashion icon and often described as one of history’s first celebrities. Her dress, interiors and decorative tastes, developed during the final decades of the eighteenth century, have shaped over 250 years of fashion, design, film and the decorative arts.
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| Portrait de Marie-Antoinette à la rose, Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun © Château de Versailles, Dist. Grand Palais RMN Christophe Fouin |
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| Marie-Antoinette's Pearl jewels. Heidi Horten Collection. © Sotheby's, Bridgeman Images |
More than 250 objects will be on display, including rare loans from the Château de Versailles, many of which have never before left France. The exhibition will combine historical and contemporary fashion with immersive displays and audio-visual installations, offering fresh perspectives on Marie Antoinette’s life, her legacy and the fascination she continues to inspire.
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| Marie-Antoinette's chair set © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
Highlights will include fragments of her court dress, silk slippers and jewellery from her private collection. Intimate personal effects—such as her dinner service from the Petit Trianon, accessories and items from her toilette case—will be exhibited outside Versailles for the first time. The exhibition will bring her lavish, theatrical style to life through immersive staging and sensory experiences, including a recreated scent of the royal court and the queen’s own favourite perfume.
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| Fragments of a court gown belonging to Marie Antoinette © Victoria and Albert Museum, London |
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| Antoinetta, 2005 by Manolo Blahnik |
Contemporary fashion will also play a central role, with couture pieces by Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Vivienne Westwood, Valentino and Moschino on display, alongside film costumes from Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning Marie Antoinette (2006), starring Kirsten Dunst. The exhibition will also showcase footwear designed by Manolo Blahnik for Coppola’s production.
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| Moschino runway show, Fall Winter 2020, Milan Fashion Week, Italy - 20 Feb 2020. Photo PIXELFORMULA,SIPA, Shutterstock |
The V&A’s collection will be displayed alongside international loans, tracing Marie Antoinette’s cultural impact and the designers and creatives she continues to inspire.
Curator Sarah Grant described the queen as “the most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in history,” adding:
“Marie Antoinette’s name summons both visions of excess and objects and interiors of great beauty. 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 her design legacy and the story of a woman whose power to fascinate has never ebbed. The rare combination of glamour, spectacle and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the eighteenth century.”
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| Crystal flaskwith label ‘Eau de Cologne from the 'Nécessaire de voyage’, belonging to Marie Antoinette. © Grand Palais RMN (musée du Louvre) Michel Urtado |
The Marie Antoinette Style exhibition will unfold chronologically, beginning with the queen’s arrival at Versailles in 1770 and ending with her execution in 1793. This opening section, Marie Antoinette: The Origins of a Style, will trace how she forged her distinctive aesthetic, from fashion and jewellery to furniture, porcelain and music. Highlights include rare personal effects such as her dinner service from the Petit Trianon, her monogrammed armchair and intimate items from her toilette case, many on loan from Versailles for the first time. Objects linked to the infamous diamond necklace affair will also be on show, alongside her final handwritten note before her death.
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| Slippers belonging to Marie Antoinette beaded pink silk. Photo CC0 Paris Musées, Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris |
The exhibition will then explore how Marie Antoinette’s image was revived in the 19th century. Marie Antoinette Memorialised: The Birth of a Style Cult will examine the romanticised view of the queen promoted by Empress Eugénie, which led to a wave of collecting and a craze for the so-called “French Revival” style across Europe and North America. Dresses by couturier Charles Frederick Worth and photographs by Eugène Atget will illustrate the enduring fascination of the era.
A third section, Marie Antoinette: Enchantment and Illusion, charts how her image entered the realms of fantasy and escapism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through Art Nouveau and Art Deco, designers and illustrators such as Jeanne Lanvin, the Boué Soeurs, Erté and Edmund Dulac cast her as a symbol of beauty, decadence and dreamlike allure.
Finally, Marie Antoinette Re-Styled will bring the story up to the present day, showcasing her influence on contemporary fashion, art and popular culture. Couture pieces by Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Valentino and Vivienne Westwood will feature alongside photographs by Tim Walker and Robert Polidori, costumes and accessories from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006), and works by artists and designers inspired by the queen’s lasting legacy.
Marie Antoinette is remembered as “the most fashionable queen” because she merged aesthetic innovation, personal expression, and political symbolism in a way no monarch had before. She lived at the moment when fashion was becoming a tool of identity and celebrity culture—and her influence still ripples through how we think about style, luxury, and fame today.
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