From 20 September 2025 until 22 March 2026, the V&A Museum is putting on a display of over 250 objects in the name of one of the most aesthetic Queens to date.
In this curated event there will be her own silk slippers, jewels and the last note that she had written when she was alive.
A fashion matrix in her own time, this is the first exhibition in the United Kingdom that celebrates her uniqueness and the French Queen’s lifestyle.
Her fashion authority on modern designers is also delivered in part of this show which features the creations of Chanel, Dior and Vivienne Westwood, among many. Contemporary inspirations demonstrate the chic of her own credibility.
Over 250 years of creativity are broadcasted to participants of an exhibition spanning over 250 years of design for this celebrity of artistic culture.
With loans from the Château de Versailles this is the first time that some of the archive will be revealed in this celebration of craftmanship and these will run aside many of the V&A’s own collection.
Sarah Grant, Curator of Marie Antoinette Style said: “The most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in history, Marie Antoinette’s name summons both visions of excess and objects and interiors of great beauty. The Austrian archduchess turned Queen of France had an enormous impact on European taste and fashion in her own time, creating a distinctive style that now has universal appeal and application. This exhibition explores that style and the figure at its centre, using a range of exquisite objects belonging to Marie Antoinette, alongside the most beautiful fine and decorative objects that her legacy has inspired. This is the design legacy of an early modern celebrity and the story of a woman whose power to fascinate has never ebbed. Marie Antoinette’s story has been re-told and re-purposed by each successive generation to suit its own ends. The rare combination of glamour, spectacle and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the eighteenth century.”
Tickets are available at vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/marie-antoinette
