On Monday, ahead of France’s brutal elimination from the World Cup, a friend of mine texted to ask what I thought would happen in Paris if Les Bleus lost to Spain on Bastille Day. I think we bring out the guillotine, I responded.
While I was, of course, joking, I’ve been surprised by how often friends of mine have started using that kind of language as shorthand. My Francophilia often being the butt of a joke, I am frequently reassured that, “Hey—at least the French got one thing right.” That one thing being, évidemment, the violent deposition of the French aristocracy.
Of course, this brought me back to Marie Antoinette. Nearly 233 years after her death, she has remained a global figure of fascination, idolized and envied and disparaged. Folkloric and fallible, she can be whoever we want her (or need her) to be—a villain, a girlboss, the saddest little aristocrat at the party. After all, she’s been an inspiration to everyone from Empress Josephine to Madonna.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Sofia Coppola’s seminal film Marie Antoinette, which brought an intimate, aestheticized version of the French queen’s life to a whole new generation. In September, the Château de Versailles will celebrate this anniversary with an exhibition at the Petit Trianon, produced in collaboration with the director herself. This follows an exhibit at the Palais Galliera in Paris that just closed, “Fashion in the 18th Century: A Fantasized Legacy,” which featured items of Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe alongside the Vivienne Westwood, Karl Lagerfeld, and John Galliano looks they inspired.
This spring saw a variety of other Marie Antoinette references return to fashion (as they do every few seasons), likely in reaction to the bland, inoffensive “quiet luxury” trend of recent years. And around the same time, one of the biggest pop stars of our time, Olivia Rodrigo, shot a music video at Versailles which paid heavy homage to Coppola’s film.
We are living in “Let them eat cake” times. The world’s first trillionaire was recently crowned; our president is obsessed with building the biggest, most beautiful ballroom in all the land; and just last week, people purchased literal trash from a so-called People’s Princess’s historically ostentatious wedding, in order to hold onto just a scrap of a function that was more ad than avowal.
So perhaps, as wealth inequality becomes ever more flagrant, we feel compelled to return to a figure who represents both the fantasy of extreme affluence, and the dark desire to see it come crashing down. As Bastille Day celebrations begin to wind down, it might be an interesting time to study up on the French Revolution and its most notorious monarch. And if you’re looking for recommendations, we’ve got you covered.
