num_pages: 90
description: Marie-Antoinette, coquette and spendthrift? Louis XVI acceded to his least requests, proud of the beauty of his wife. As a Queen, she was obliged to play her role of representation and to encourage luxury industries. The queen followed the fashion, but she was also, to her measure, inspired. When choosing a style of dress, hairdressing, quality women took over this model, and craftsmen, milliners and tailors, fabric manufacturers, were all concerned. The King and Queen lived in public. So both table objects, as the furnishings and their clothing were scrutinized in their least details, then imitated. Madame d'Ossun, lady-in-waiting2 of the Queen since 1781, was in charge to put order in royal orders and to verify that the artisans actually provide what had been ordered and paid for. Every morning, the lady of attires proposed to Marie Antoinette a register containing tissue samples belonging to the dresses of the Queen. She then chose the toilets of the day from these boards. The book presents the reproductions of these samples with sometimes the mention of their supplier. They show for the most part plain or striped fabrics, of the greatest simplicity in predominantly pastel tones. In 1782, fashionable fabrics are smooth and shiny, like satins, or transparent and shiny like gauze. The clothes are described in evocative terms that make us imagine Marie-Antoinette at her Big Easter garb trimmed by Miss Bertin, Dress on the Big Basket, this is a kind of newspaper of daily fashion, whose details bring the reader to the heart of the intimacy of a queen.
language: French
title: Gazette des atours de Marie-Antoinette : Garde-robe des atours de la reine ; Gazette pour l'année 1782
publisher: Réunion des musées nationaux