Design a Signature Marie Antoinette Costume?

Answer 1

Dressing as Marie Antoinette for Halloween or a costume party is the perfect way to live out your most opulent fantasies. As the young Queen of France in the late 1700s, Marie Antoinette set the standard for extravagant gowns, stunning hair styles, and trend-setting fashion risks. With limitless funds at her disposal, she patronized the famed Paris couturier Rose Bertin and pushed the envelope with tight corsets, exposed dcolletage, huge hoop skirts with seemingly endless petticoats that were short enough to show her ankles, and all sorts of jewels or tongue-in-cheek items showcased within her mounds of hair.

The right hair is essential to top off a Marie Antoinette costume, and unless you currently have thick hair that comes at least halfway down your back, you'll probably need extensions or a wig to approximate a recognizable Marie Antoinette look. The signature style for her hair is a pouf that stood almost three feet high. For all formal occasions and in most of the surviving works of art for which she sat, Marie Antoinette's hair was powdered, so you can get the right look whether you have brown hair or blonde. Find a couple of feathers or strands of pearls to weave into the elaborate pile of waves on your head, and everyone is sure to know who you are.

Most people think of the corsets, voluminous skirts, and piles of hair as being the quintessential Marie Antoinette costume, but there is another option if you are interested in history or fashion. In one of her many acts of rebellion against the expectations that chafed her, Marie Antoinette became interested in English fashions, and started a trend for appearing in her own signature version of an English pastoral look. Sometimes she even dressed as a shepherdess or milkmaid. If you're interested in a Marie Antoinette costume to invoke this era of her life, go for a simple linen or muslin dress with a scarf around the waist, a straw hat, and no adornments like jewelry or makeup at all. It's likely that one will know you're Marie Antoinette at first, but it can be a great conversation starter.