Occasionally (more than occasionally perhaps) the effort to tie all of Marie Antoinette's behaviors and the reactive responses of her many enemies to fashion cultural codes was a bit strained. That is a minor quibble however.

They granted the hooligans permission to make the tour of the prison with Madame De lamballes head on the condition they left the corpse at the door’ This is the book that spurred me on to reading biographies again. The premise for this book is that Maria Antoinette did not have a lot of power--certainly not the kind-of power she might have expected to have given her mother. She was also limited in the ways she could express herself. So, Marie Antoinette turned to fashion as a way to express her views and to influence her husband. At nursing or residential homes, the Queen wears strong colours to help those who are visually impaired, and on walkabouts, the crown and brim of her hat will be taken into account.

There were masked balls, she donned a domino, into her company came notorious court seducers and in the company she kept in her small world was not of the court, spies were routed.

She takes her place in this wonderland of pouf creation and extravagance that will bring down the Austrian daughter of the Caesar's. The national Platinum Jubilee celebrations set for June offer the perfect opportunity for the nation’s longest-reigning monarch to debut platinum-influenced pieces or jewellery, channelling the historic occasion through her fashion. The gold dress she wore for the 2012 Diamond Jubilee palace pop concert was influenced by the golden figure on the Queen Victoria Memorial, around which the stage was constructed. The monarch has see-through “Birdcage” brollies made by the Fulton group to match each outfit in case of wet weather, with the edging and handle corresponding to the exact shade she is wearing. And while the special occasion could see some nods to the platinum theme, the style will be the familiar one that has developed throughout her record-breaking reign.Amidst all the books on Marie Antoinette that I've acquired over the years (for reasons which are both curious and somewhat unknown to me!), Caroline Weber's "Queen of Fashion" has figured high on my list.

This captivating, heavily annotated scholarly work offers deep insight into the role of fashion in the queen's life, and which, combined with all the politics, propaganda and lies, contributed to her increased unpopularity and demise. While fashion as a mode of expression will always be part of our lives, to say that its stakes have since greatly changed would be an understatement. As Weber states: "The politics of costume held her—far more than any of history's subsequent fashion queens—quite firmly by the throat." While this book is not perfect, it points out that clothing is a method of communication which greatly affects human interaction. Even today, in a less charged atmosphere than the French court, what we choose to wear (or not wear) says a lot about our social, economic, political and religious affiliations.

The Dauphine's first act of defiance, a 15-year-old's strop, was her refusal to wear the grand corps, the rigid corset permitted only to the court elite. Her second was to learn to ride, and don not only male-style upper-body garments (nothing novel about that, female royals and courtiers had galloped about in similar equine fig since the 1660s), but to wear, and be painted in, breeches, while astride the saddle. Hunting Frenchwomen hid "culottes" under skirts; only the awesome Catherine the Great of Russia and comic actresses flaunted their lower limbs in breeches. Rose Bertin a milliner, makes her way to to the court of the new Dauphine. She is a pretty woman who knows how ‘ a well shaped ankle turned out nicely at the fireplace, where she sits will be to her advantage, but she is also a doughty heart who fights for the widows thrown into into the Bastille by pleading her case with the Dauphine. Rosey is in demand with the old boys too, who seek to abduct her away to to their little cottage, to have their way with her but she stands up to them defiantly and lets the whole world know, she is being put upon by this married old beard, who hisses’ little viper’ at her, attempts upon her to the world. The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations this year will see her fashion choices take centre stage.

Soon though she is sparkling with the other young girls in court, nobody over thirty should be at court are among her brightest opinions. But despite them all, she is launched a great soft big bird in paint and curls and refreshing too, after the the stiff ladies in the Dauphine boudoir. Tiny weights are also put into daywear hemlines in case of windy weather, and fabrics that crumple or could potentially develop messy loose strands are avoided.

All I ever knew of Marie. Antoinette before I read this book was that she had been spoiled and that the French courts insane spending while people starved brought the monarchy down, before this book I never thought of her as a human being but her story is moving. It is the Dauphine doing but Rose supplied the colour, the boundless eyes on poufs and fashions and the palette of why not have one in every colour. Anything the plum and cake filled girl pointed a demanding finger at. This and that she’d have. This book should definitely be read after one reads Antonia Fraser's "Marie Antoniette: A Journey." This is not a definitive biography, nor does it claim to be. However, it looks at the ill-fated queen in a unique and textual way- through the clothing choices she made at every juncture in her tenure as Dauphine, and later Queen of France. The thrifty Queen re-wears and adapts her clothes, with the average lifespan of an outfit running to 25 years.