Caroline Weber, Queen of Fashion

Queen of Fashion

Caroline Weber

Holt, October 2006 $27.50

ISBN: 0805079491

This is a terrific look at Marie Antoinette through the fashion she wore that defied French society over the objections of the aristocracy, yet set trends with these same nay-sayers imitating or parodying the monarch, while the hookers and madams copied her. The premise of Caroline Weber's fashionable biography is that the doomed queen was her own person from the time at fourteen she first sat on the throne to her last dance with Madam Guillotine. This book is well written and fascinating, and fans of the French Revolution era will be enthralled by the detailed accounts, especially the haunting all in white final ride to the execution, as the author uses the clothing to symbolize the extravagance and ruin of a regime. With a salute to Arnold's Clothing Theory, Caroline Weber provides a fresh look at this violent period through the wardrobe of its most representative figure.