A hatful of horrors
The jeering Parisian crowds lining the route to the guillotine were all too aware that the plain white, ugly mobcap Marie Antoinette was forced to wear for her execution was designed to mock her excesses. When she had become queen in 1774, she had rebelled against the traditional dress style of the French court, ordering the latest, more provocative styles — including hairpieces topped off with large arrays of feathers — from Rose Bertin, who became a leading French milliner and dressmaker.
A mountain of powdered hair piled high and finished with a large panache of ostrich and other feathers (as seen below, in this 1778 portrait of Marie Antoinette) set a fashion trend and projected extreme extrava gance, when many French people endured terrible shortages.
Marie Antoinette may have picked precisely the wrong time to flaunt her passion for outrageous headwear, but that didn’t stop Paris fashion — flamboyant, feather-bedecked hats in particular — becoming the envy of women of means across Europe and America. Not that the new flamboyance was welcomed by everyone.
