Exploring Marie Antoinette Style @ The V&A Museum, London

Busts, breast bowls and beautiful things: join me to explore Marie Antoinette Style

I recently spent an afternoon at the V&A in South Kensington, London exploring the Marie Antoinette Style exhibition. I loved every minute of it and hope I can inspire you to plan your own visit. There’s still time, as Marie Antoinette Style is running until 22 March 2026.

The exhibition explores the story of Marie Antoinette herself, the most fashionable and controversial Queen in history, before taking visitors into a world of high fashion, lavish living and enduring influence on designers and creatives to this day.

The Austrian archduchess turned Queen of France was a taste maker, the original influencer. This London exhibition is the perfect place to fall into her story.

Marie Antoinette: The Most Fashionable Queen in History

Marie Antoinette is famous for being the ill-fated French queen, but her story begins in Austria. Born Maria Antonia Josefa Johanna at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the 15th child of Empress Maria Theresa.

Empress Maria Theresa had her hands full. As well as a large family, she was ruler of the vast Habsburg empire. Keeping order in an empire made up of various kingdoms and duchies was no small task. Negotiation and strategic marriages were essential.

Hence why, at just 14 years old, Maria Antonia was married off to the future King Louis XVI in what was essentially a very political and very glamourous peace treaty.

Once in France, Maria Antonia adopted a French version of her name, becoming the Marie Antoinette.

Reactions to the new royal were mixed. The marriage was plagued with problems, the palace of Versailles thick with politics and rumours. Marie Antoinette coped by spending heavily on fashion, luxuries and creating a fantasy to escape into.

Marie Antoinette style was born and spread like wildfire across Europe.

Marie Antoinette Style: The Exhibition

The first part of the exhibition embraces everything you’d think of when you think of Marie Antoinette. Dresses, fans, jewellery, furniture, even Marie Antoinette designed garden tools. Many feature her personal monogram, this was a woman who knew how to build a personal brand. Things of beauty, everywhere.

FYI, the garden tools were trimmed with ribbons and braiding. Marie Antoinette wasn’t digging over the gardens, but she did apparently like to dress up and pretend at rural life. You can see why she rubbed the peasantry up the wrong way, can’t you?

Such was her love of design and dressing well that she continued to order clothes in her favourite Toile de Jouy fabric right up until her last days in a prison cell. I cannot decide if that is terrible behaviour, or an impressive commitment to style. Bit of both?

Marie Antoinette’s extravagant taste extended into every aspect of her life, including interiors. This chair is a grand example of this, made as part of a suite for her private apartment in 1788. There’s a fascinating article here about the chairs history and restoration.

No detail was too small for the queen to consider. She even had a set of porcelain commissioned for her ornamental dairy. Behold the breast bowl, rumoured at the time to have been modelled on Marie Antoinette’s own breast.

Marie Antoinette Style paints an sympathetic picture of a young queen. Forever young-she was married off at 14 and dead before 40. One section of the exhibition invites you to get up close and personal by leaning in to experience the scent of a several scented busts.

The first few are delightful, inspired by English Garden at Petit Trianon with scent notes including lilac, English roses and honeysuckle. The final bust is inspired by the Conciergerie prison cell where Marie Antoinette spent her final days. Think scent notes of mildew, sewage, the Seine and juniper. Lean in and enjoy.

The section charting her downfall is not so glamourous. Exhibits include crude revolutionary pamphlets with illustrations of the queen getting up to all sorts of shenanigans and a genuine guillotine blade.

There is an option to by pass this part of the exhibition should you wish.

The final part of the exhibition is an illustration and celebration of Marie Antoinette’s enduring influence on fashion, art and cinema. There are shoes from Manolo Blahnik and dresses from Dior, Galliano, Moschino and Chanel.

Marie Antoinette Style is a wonderful experience, an absolute must for anyone with any interest in history and/or fashion. This is also a unique opportunity to see some rare surviving objects that belonged to the queen, some of which are on display together for the first time outside of Versailles and France.

It’s a touching and colourful portrait of a young woman with immense creative talent and extravagant taste. You can’t help but consider if she’d been born into different time and circumstance, she might have been a creative force rather than an ill-fated queen.

By the end of it, I found myself on her side. Team Marie Antoinette.

Note of Caution: Visiting this exhibition may leave you with a desire to book trips to Paris, Versailles and Vienna. It certainly did me.

Marie Antoinette Style at V&A South Kensington runs until Sunday, 22 March 2026. Tickets from £23, free for members.

While you’re at the V&A, you shouldn’t miss the beautiful cafe. Read about it here: The Cafe at the V&A

Helen x