Dewy-skinned female courtiers swathed in pearl-encrusted, silvery lace dresses sprawl across maroon and purple velvet sofas. Their white-wigged male counterparts drink from silver goblets amid platters overflowing with strawberries. Elegant brass candelabras and Greco-Roman stone sculptures flank stone arches and a pink and orange sunset. This is not a scene from Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” which will open in U.S. theaters Oct. 20 – it’s an images from the Dolce & Gabbana fall/winter collection ad campaign, a prime example of how the buzz surrounding the movie and its sumptuous costumes has resonated in the fashion world.
- Jonathan Duggan
- Jonathan Duggan
The film stars Kirsten Dunst as Antoinette and Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI and follows the 19 lonely, public, lavish years the queen spent at Versailles in the late 18th century, from her first meeting with royal heir Louis at 14 and the relentless rumors and complete lack of privacy she endured as queen to the final days of her reign during the French Revolution.
Coppola’s subject is controversial. Historically, you either love the notorious French queen, or you hate her. Notoriously unconcerned and disinterested with political matters, Antoinette instead surrounded herself with an exclusive circle of friends, unconcernedly throwing money into diamonds, clothes, shoes and cakes, and hosting late-night gambling parties. Coppola’s take, based on Antonia Fraser’s sympathetic account “Marie Antoinette: The Journey,” portrays the queen merely as a woman whose superficial lifestyle was largely a result of her girlish na’vet