|
| Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution | 
 enlarge | Author: Caroline Weber
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy New: $12.75
You Save: $14.75 (54%)
New (6) Used (5) from $11.07
Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 430642
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 391.00944
ASIN: B0019S3ICE
Publication Date: September 19, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: excellent new
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Insightful look at the politics of Excess April 11, 2007
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Queen Marie-Antoinette of France's love of fashion was one of her fatal flaws. This love of fashion and dress-up (or down in her case) has often been commented on in biographies of the Queen. However, this is the first book to chart the reasons behind her apparent fashion madness and how while her enemies derided her for the vast amounts she spent on her wardrobe they were usually the first to copy what she wore.
This book concentrates on what Marie-Antoinette wore from the time she left Austria till her death at the guillotine. It has a picture section in the middle that shows some of the outfits talked about in the text - but the images of Marie- Antoinette could easily fill another book as subject to itself (one which I'm surprised hasn't been tackled in English before this).
If you have an interest in 18th century French costume this is a book worth picking up for a read as it charts the costume excesses of the last quarter of the 18th century in good detail. It's also a minor biography of the Queen in itself. While this book fills out the background to the downfall of the Queen its not a real substitute for a well written formal biography. The real moral of this book is that a great fashion sense is no real substitute for genuine Power
 terrific look at Marie Antoinette through her fashion October 4, 2006
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
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.
Harriet Klausner
 Not sure whether it wants to be a biography or fashion August 26, 2007
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
I found queen of fashion to be not enough queen and not enough fashion. It pairs a less than adequate biography of Marie Antionette with a smattering of observations on how her fashion choices both represented her role as well as influenced events around her.
What I found problematic was that the fashion highlights jumped around in terms of time periods. There would be a detailed explanation of a time, then a gap of several years before another touching base. I'm not sure if this was due to a lack of source material for the intervening period, but it made for very choppy reading.
If you've read a lot on Marie Antionette, you can skim this to pick up the fashion pieces. If you haven't read a lot about her, pick up another biography first.
This might have worked better as a series of essays than as an overall biography.
Disappointing -- 2&1/2 stars.
Almost a perfect book November 4, 2006
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Excllent book; I've read a lot about the French Revolution and there were facts here I'd never read before, or that had never been emphasized in other books. The only reason I do not give it five stars is that the author fell for that old urban legend about Marie Antoinette's hair going white from fright during her flight to Varennes: I'm surprised that a historian would repeat that old canard as if it were true (or even possible). Other than that caveat, I highly recommend this book.
Uncommonly Good February 26, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Typically I would expect a book about Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution to be pretty dry. This book is extremely well-written and well-researched and frankly I couldn't put it down. The great pictures were also very helpful as I had no idea what some of the more obscure items looked like. If you like sociology, fashion, art or art history, you will enjoy this book.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
