Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

I am reading Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by 18th century specialist Caroline Weber. I haven't finished it - it's pretty hefty at nearly 500 pages. However, I plan to complete it because I'm enjoying it.

Marie Antoinette is a controversial figure - as a representative of excess, an ignorant heartless snob ("Let them eat cake"), a victim of Madame le Guillotine, a naive girl in over her head, and so on. Weber proposes another take on this Austrian girl by analyzing the clothing she wore. It's a fascinating analysis, though I don't ascribe to all of her premise.

Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains the political controversies that her clothing caused. She surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," analyzing each phase of her life, beginning with the Austrian Archduchess trying to survive the rather bizarre restrictions of Versailles's traditions of royal glamour. As queen, Marie Antoinette used spectacular clothing to project her image as that of a powerful entity. However, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly," i.e., more simplified, clothing that, ironically, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her. The paradox of her story, according to Weber, is that fashion - the method used to secure her position as the Queen of France - was also her undoing.

While this take on Marie Antoinette is unique, it's premise is a bit, well, too specific for me. Just examining her costuming, mile-high hair ensembles, and fabulous jewelry as a method to obtain power and then lose that power is limiting. This poor girl was the shuttlecock being batted back and forth between the Austrian empire and the French royal court - the political ambitions of her mother, Empress Maria Therese, versus the machinations of the French court and it's factions (including the various mistresses of the old king, Louis XV). Marie Antoinette was ill-suited to her role in France, and was too trusting, too young, and too clueless. Versailles was a brutal place, no place for such a child (she was 14 when she arrived). To propose that this girl "fought" back by what she wore is a bit of a stretch.

However, I am reminded of Princess Diana who faced a similar situation with the rituals and restrictions in the house of Windsor. She used clothing and her glamour, among other things, to obtain and keep power.

The book is well written and entertaining. I would recommend it - especially to fashionistas, who will swoon over the descriptions (and costs!) of her apparel and jewels.

A side note: it's obvious to me that Sophia Coppola read this book before she created her movie - the film is all about the Queen's fashion and her vapidness in the court of Versailles. If you've seen the movie, then it will help you visualize the clothing in the book. However, if you haven't seen the movie, I wouldn't recommend it. I would advise to stick to the book - it's much better.

The Private Patient

The Baroness James of Holland Park, i.e., P.D. James, has pushed her beloved Adam Dalgliesh out into the publishing world once again. The Private Patient is latest of the Dalgliesh mystery novels. Despite Baroness James' age (88) she has lost none of her acuity, subtlety, and inventiveness.

The "private patient" is Rhoda Gradwyn, a well-known scandal reporter in the British tabloid tradition. She digs up the dirt no matter where it is or who it destroys. She has asked a cosmetic surgeon to remove a prominent and ugly facial scar that her father had inflicted on her during a drunken violent spree when she was a child. But why - the first mystery - had she waited so long to get rid of the disfigurement? “Because I no longer have need of it” is all she would say.

Her murder takes place in a gloomy historic manor house in Dorset, which the surgeon has converted into an expensive private clinic where his clients can be operated on and recover. Dr. Chandler-Powell, the surgeon, was successful in reducing the scar on Rhoda Gradwyn's face. It was unfortunate - and bad for business - that she was strangled in her bed that very night. Sounds like a case for the local constabulary. You would think. But no. The Prime Minister gets involved and wants Dalgliesh to investigate.

As is usually the case in a P.D. James novel, the threads of the murder start in the past. And there is a lot of not-so-pleasant history with several members of the clinic and household. It's the typical Jamesian multiple red herrings to throw you off the scent. It's not all that surprising about who did it, really. But the way James gets to the solution is the joy in the book.

You have to read P.D. James the way she writes - it's never hurried, action packed, or even bodice-ripping thrilling. It's more psychological, introspective, and more subtle. It's a leisurely read; no frantic turning of the pages to get to the solution.

There is also a side story of Dalgliesh's love life with Emma Lavenham, the professor he met several novels back. They're planning their wedding when the murder occurs and poor Adam has to leave his lady love in the lurch to deal with florists, caterers, etc., plus a family crisis that he can't help her with. So, of course, he's torn about his duty to his job and his duty to his fiance. A side note: there is a tie-in with Jane Austen in this story. Initially, Emma's best friend Clara despised Dalgliesh. But they warm to each other, sort of. James describes the home of Clara and her partner Annie "where no one entered without - in Jane Austen's words - the sanguine expectation of happiness." And at the end after the wedding, Clara and Annie make note of the end of Emma and Mrs. Elton's comment, "Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business." Sounds like a pretty snarky thing to say about one's best friend, but they then remember how the novel ends. "But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union." At least Dalgliesh didn't have to make Mr. Knightley's sacrifice and move in with her father!

In the purview of P.D. James' work this is not one of the superior novels. However, an average James is better than many other mystery writers' best work. Check it out.