****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Okay, yes, I am well and truly aware that MA never said "Let them eat cake," and that it was from a princess 100 years before MA ever set foot in France. However, the spirit of that saying, how MA was accused of violating her subjects by blithely ignoring their economical state for the duration of her tenure as Queen of France, that I want to convey, even while knowing how she was in some ways innocent of their myriad of accusations.This book, Queen of Fashion, originally caught my eye when the description laid out a biography of MA by basing much of her actions, her rise and fall from power, and her eventual demise through her clothing choices and how clothes in the time of late 1700's France conveyed power, prestige, privilege, and most especially, monarchial control. From the sample alone, I encountered a wealth of information based on MA's early years in Austria, how she was raised and tutored in the ways of dance, music, history, and etiquette on to when her betrothal to the Dauphin of France was finalized before she made her way to the border between France and Austria for the exchange of this primped and proper archduchess over to the French envoys. The amount of money that Maria Teresa spent on her daughter before she ever left the Austrian borders, a trouseauu that eclipsed all the dowries of her sisters, all to impress the French officials and nobility that would bear witness to the detailed, and yes very naked, transformation of this Austrian girl to French Dauphine, was mind-blowing. What I can only imagine as being close to millions of today's currency all for clothes, accessories, and a carriage to elevate MA into the French's idea of Bourbon luxury is incredible to me. And from there, the excess became even more stunning.Over the course of the book, the amount of clothing and extras that MA commissioned, who her stylists were, where she shopped and perused in the streets of Paris, and the masses of details and jewels and fads she created and unleashed on the court and upper nobility, all outlined and embellished how MA was received at court when she first arrived (Louis XV found her quite charming and approved, the Dauphin was terrified of her, and many were just waiting for the Le Autrichienne to mess up so horribly she would be sent back to Vienna) and how the turbulent social and political climate of her time directed her actions from her entrance to France up until her death.-- How she used the glorious over-the-top grandeur of her ancestor the Sun King, and consumed millions of livres to furnish her body with clothes, jewels, shoes, ribbons, hats, coats, and coiffuers, to build up her royal "credit" to win court allies when she couldn't birth an heir due to her husband's delicate erectile condition and earning the ire of French citizens for her expenditures and amounting debt as well as the nickname "Madame Deficit" in the bargain.-- How she created unorthodox pseudo-pastoral styles of muslin and linen dresses called gaulles and wide farm hats tied with silk ribbons at her Petit Trianon in order to escape the exceedingly rigid, ridiculously complex etiquette of Versailles, and greatly offending the authentic peasants that starved for bread and flour that MA was constantly covering her hair with while also starving the established French silk industry with her imported fabrics.-- How she commissioned an entire wardrobe of royalist-colored dresses and coats when the revolution was metaphorically (and quite literally) beating down the doors of the palace to have her head, thus encouraging her captors that any promise of complicity and support of the changing political times was an absolute falsehood, condemning MA even further in their eyes as a born deceiver, an insatiable monster, and the cause of all their problems.-- And how, during the final hours of her life, MA chose to wear a pure white gown and cap on the ride to her execution, cementing into the minds of the revolutionaries that had come to watch her death, the vision of an unstained, almost deified, figure that graciously and full of dignity strode to her doom, not once allowing the pain and grief of her unfortunate life, her lost husband and friends, her children torn from her arms, and the cruel, malicious actions of biased, hateful jailers to be seen on her face as she confronted Madame Guilliotine for the first and last time.I loved this book. LOVED it. I would gladly recommend this book to any history buff or MA lover. The amount of detail, research, and flow of information was perfect. I devoured it in days. Please, if you love MA or are a fan of France circa 1700s, get this book. It will not disappoint.
