19/100: Marie Antoinette (2006) with Blossom Darling
Let them wear Manolos!
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Costumes by: Milena Canonero
Directed by: Sofia Coppola
This movie may be for you if: your favorite wing of the museum is French decorative arts, you love shoes, and you prefer your period pieces served with a little anachronism.
Where to watch: Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+
You’re probably in one of two camps.
When most people hear the name Marie Antoinette, they think of the divisive 18th Century Queen. But for a much smaller group of (mostly Millennial) cult classic film fans and Sofia Coppola heads, the name Marie Antoinette transports you to Versailles circa 2006. The legendary historical figure looks like a young Kirsten Dunst, the Baroque palace halls echo with the sounds of New Order, and the Queen, of course, has periwinkle Converse.
Coming off the success of The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003), writer and director Sofia Coppola used her third feature film to continue exploring themes of isolation and disillusionment, but this time through the lens of history. Based on the 2001 biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser, Coppola’s take on the most infamous Queen of France would eventually be hailed by many as one of the best examples of anachronistic historical drama in film. She described it as “a pop approach, but still grounded in the real period.”
Though the movie was initially released to mixed reviews and only modest box office success (especially compared to its whopping $40 million budget), Marie Antoinette took home the Best Costume Design Oscar, and would only become more beloved and revered with each passing year.
Creating the decadent fashion world of Marie Antoinette was just as elaborate as the award winning wardrobe would suggest. Costume designer Milena Canonero and six assistant designers created the film’s gowns, headpieces, suits, and more at a workshop they set up in Rome. Coppola said fittings could last hours for characters that only appeared briefly in the background, with every detail considered, down to the socks.
Last year, now twenty years since the film’s release, Coppola and Canonero sat down in conversation for Cartier’s Masterclass at the Venice Film Festival to reminisce on their decades long creative relationship.
The two first met on the set of the elder Coppola’s 1984 musical The Cotton Club, where an 11-year-old Sofia found herself enamored by Canonero and the magic of her on-set atelier. Coppola felt that Canonero was an “obvious choice” for Marie Antoinette - and not just because the designer had already taken home one of her (then only) two Best Costume Design Oscars for 18th Century costuming in Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 historical drama Barry Lyndon.
“[Canonero’s] approach is always really unique, and she brought so much style to the film… I wanted to make this period film feel alive and fresh and not like an academic historical piece,” Coppola said. “I knew that Milena would help me make what I had in mind and bring a fresh eye to this time.”
As much as I love vintage, my expertise doesn’t go back much further than the 20th Century. But lucky for me (and you!), I knew exactly who to talk to.
For movie #19 of the 100 Fashion Films Project, I’m joined by historical dressmaker and amateur historian Blossom Darling to discuss the confectionary rock-and-Rococco world of Marie Antoinette. When Darling isn’t sharing a behind-the-scenes look at how she makes her own period accurate antique wardrobe pieces, she’s educating her audience about the history of menstruation, sharing sewing tips, and debunking corset myths. She’s become a respected voice in the increasingly popular topic of historical costuming in film, consistently offering incredibly well-researched takes on the often controversial period styling of media like Bridgerton, Sinners, and Wuthering Heights.
As a historical costumer, what are your thoughts on the accuracy of Milena Canonero’s costume design for the film?
“I think overall, the costumes lend themselves not only to be objectively accurate, but also invoke the energy of the time - with careful interpretation,” said Darling. “[It helps you] feel the opulence and extravagance of the era in a way that might not otherwise be understood through perfect accuracy.”
“I think this film also does an excellent job showing the major transition in Antoinette’s styles over the decades,” she continued. “These weren’t just incredibly important changes in fashion at that time as a whole, but also to [Marie Antoinette’s] journey both individually and as a queen.”
“If I was giving this film a rating out of 10, I would give it an 8.”
During last year’s Venice Film Festival conversation, Coppola and Canonero explained how the color palette of Marie Antoinette’s costume design was inspired by both contemporary fashion and a soon-to-be iconic French pastry.
“Sofia came to visit, and arrived with an enormous box of macarons,” Canonero recalled. “Everybody knows them now, but in those days they were quite new, especially in Italy. In a very gentle way, she did not say that it was going to be the palette, but rather, I really like these colors.”
They also mentioned a Marc Jacobs collection inspired by shades of macarons, though I couldn’t find any direct reference to the exact season. Based on a look through the archives I think it may have been Spring 2004 RTW, described by Vogue Runway as “a sweet confection of a collection, full of pretty clothes and gentle colors.”
“I principally focus on those colors throughout the whole range of the movie until the end, because in the macaron, you go from very pale pastel to dark chocolate to noir, black,” Canonero continued. “So I had the whole palette in front of me, and it was a good idea.”
Famed French luxury confectionery Ladurée provided pastries for the set, with their macarons appearing in a scene between Marie Antoinette and Ambassador Mercy. The patisserie released a limited edition “Marie Antoinette” Collection following the film’s release.
Manolo Blahnik also famously designed 25 pairs of custom shoes for the movie, described by the designer as “some kind of cross between academic and a little bit of fantasy.” His quote feels like a perfect way to describe so many of the choices made for this film. I asked Darling what makes Marie Antoinette such a great example of taking creative liberties in historical storytelling.
“I often say that costume designers in period films need to know the rules before they choose to break them,” she said. “I think that it’s very evident through the inaccuracies that Canonero chose. She knew what her rules were, and that’s what makes her choices so excellent.”
“I think a huge theme of this film is Antoinette’s youthful carelessness. We see this through parties, through her spending, through her wardrobe, and even the way she chooses to speak. I think adding in [that] pair of Chuck Taylors, giving her softer, more fun hair than maybe would have been worn at the time, or putting in a big tulle party gown - [it] gives the audience a greater sense of the incredible opulence in the 18th century,” explained Darling.
“It’s all a great big, insanely expensive party. A party royalty was having while their people starved.”
That royal extravance appeared not only in shoes and silk and endless platters of jewel-like food, but in unprecedented access to the actual Palace of Versailles (thank you Sofia for using your nepo baby powers for good). The story offered a compassionate portrayal of the impossible contradictions of life as young royalty, something the late Antoinette was previously not given by the general public. Coppola used glittering showcases of ridiculous wealth and excess as a foil for tender moments - even the richest Queens in history can’t escape the realities of being a teenage girl.
Marie Antoinette’s unexpected soundtrack was panned by many critics at the time of release, but the jarring contrast of The Cure and Aphex Twin have become one of film’s most beloved elements following decades. The movie’s surprising music choices also informed the overall aesthetic, with inspiration taken from the outlandish style and thrust-in-the-spotlight stories of young artists. In this behind-the-scenes clip, Coppola shows off a black-and-white computer print out of Adam Ant as a reference.
“A lot of bands in the early ‘80s had this kind of romantic idea of the 18th century,” Coppola explained. “I was a teenager in the ‘80s, so I was thinking of them as teenagers, and relating them to my teenage time.”
“I’d always loved the tradition of period movies like Amadeus and I was trying to do that in a kind of a youthful, irreverent way,” Coppola said in another 2013 interview, reflecting on her past work. “My whole relationship to that period was through the New Romantics when I was a kid, so I created a New Romantic video version of the period.”
A fan favorite scene is a music-video-esque montage of excess, set to the Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy. The camera cuts from lavishly detailed textiles to overflowing champagne coupes to Antoinette’s collection of candy-colored Manolos. A little white dog sits on an expensive looking pastel blue couch, licking a miniature cake.
“I was thinking about bored women at Barneys, and how they always perked up in the shoe section,” Coppola said.
The film’s extensive and detailed footwear was produced by Pompei, an Italian manufacturer that specializes in pieces for film and stage. In fall of 2025, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum presented Marie Antoinette Style in partnership with Manolo Blahnik, celebrating the famed shoe designer’s decades long fascination with the French queen. Blahnik released a limited-edition capsule collection of shoes inspired by both the new exhibit and his past work on Coppola’s film.
Though the real life Marie Antoinette was derided for reportedly ordering two pairs of shoes a week, the Queen was arguably better known for her towering hairstyles. Legendary french hair stylist Odile Gilbert designed the film’s wigs and hair pieces, made by Rocchetti & Rocchetti. Though Gilbert wasn’t tasked with exact recreations of 18th-century poufs, the movie’s hairstyles needed to reflect that essential element of Marie Antoinette’s fashion legacy. The queen (and her hairstylist, Léonard) popularized increasingly dramatic styles, up to three feet tall and adorned with fine jewels, symbolic charms, and figurines.
“Marie-Antoinette’s hairstyles functioned as a corporeal element in the establishment of her French identity,” wrote Desmond Hosford, author of The Queen’s Hair: Marie-Antoinette, Politics, and DNA. “[It] served a performative role within the context of French queenship, and continued to operate as a site of dynastic agency even after her death.”
According to jewelry historian Marion Fasel, the 2006 Marie Antoinette wardrobe also featured over $4 of vintage accessories on loan from Fred Leighton. Genuine 18th and 19th Century rings, necklaces, earrings, and brooches studded in diamonds and pink topaz offered were perhaps some of the most historically accurate details in the Marie Antoinette wardrobe. The Queen was well known (and reviled) for her extensive jewelry collection, with many of her original pieces included at the recently concluded Marie Antoinette Style exhibit.
The aesthetics of this film are deeply beloved by audiences. In what ways do you think the costumes and design choices for this movie have been influential?
“It’s been hugely inspirational for a great deal of historical costumers who choose to get into 18th century costuming because of the film’s incredible wardrobe,” shared Darling.
“I also feel like I have seen just about a thousand Tumblr posts and Tiktok videos mixing together clips of Marie (with her children, playing in the grass with her lambs, or her lounging listlessly in her little boat) with other very aesthetically inspiring clips from [movies like] Tuck Everlasting or Pride and Prejudice.”
“I do enjoy the irony of clips of Antoinette at Hameau de la Reine being used as like, pastoral aesthetic inspiration,” she noted. “Antoinette [herself had that whole village made] to live out her own little cottagecore fantasy - it’s not actually pastoral, it’s the same fantasy [that modern] cottagecore is. The idea of simplicity instead of the actual experience of it, if that makes sense.”
In 2018, the Museo del Tessuto di Prato displayed an exhibition dedicated to Canonero’s award-winning Marie Antoinette designs, described by the museum as what “critics consider the costumes to be the best cinematographic reinterpretation of eighteenth-century apparel ever created.” Over twenty garments, primarily worn by the film’s main characters, were on view alongside a Historical Textile Room with original pieces from the 18th Century.
While the French Queen’s legacy would have certainly remained an enduring fascination regardless of the 2006 film, Coppola’s interpretation has become inextricably linked with the contemporary vision of Antoinette’s memory. While the movie certainly can’t claim ownership of the Marie Antoinette aesthetic, it is hard not to feel some sense of homage when designers showcase pink powdered wigs with jeans, or when Rococo styling is juxtaposed with contemporary footwear.
And Marie Antoinette shifted the culture beyond Caronero’s masterful costume design. Coppola’s cheeky references and then-shocking soundtrack paved the way for a new kind of historical fiction, setting trends in filmmaking, fashion, music, and even food. The mid 2000’s were suddenly awash in macarons, a dessert most Americans were hard pressed to find anywhere (let alone ever even heard of) just a few years earlier. Blair Waldorf name drops Ladurée in multiple episodes of Gossip Girl, Slate reported nine different publications declaring macarons “the new cupcake” in 2010, and Ladurée debuted their first American location in 2011.
Favorite (or least favorite) outfit or garment from the movie? Any particular pieces, sets, or scenes you’d like to mention?
“My Pinterest boards are absolutely littered with all of the scenes where Antoinette is floating around gracefully, lying about in the grass and whispering to her babies in flowy white dresses,” said Darling.
“Oh, and her pink hair in those later scenes! Iconic!”
“I live for the contrast of her leaning against the most opulent wallpaper you can imagine, in an enormous room of priceless furniture, while she cries over her and the king’s inability to bear a child. Not to say that her suffering in that moment is not real and very serious, it’s just such a simple way to show just how complicated she was.”
“I also will gladly watch the entire film through just to see her bow to the protesters at the end of the film. It’s such a powerful moment!”
“Honestly, I think the [behind-the-scenes] photos of Kirsten Dunst and her cast mates listening to music on a Macbook and smoking cigarettes, all while dressed in perfect 18th century court ware, may be just as iconic as the whole rest of the film. I absolutely think of those photos as an aesthetic in and of themselves!”
I’ll leave you with this very silly clip from the Marie Antoinette DVD extras.
And to think - kids these days will never know the disorienting euphoria of waking up in the middle of the night on your friend’s floor while a DVD home screen song plays on an endless loop.
Overall as a Fashion Film: 9/10
Fashion: 9/10
Influence: 9/10
Movie: 9/10
A huge thank you to Blossom Darling for your contributions to this piece! It was such a pleasure to talk to you about this movie - I loved hearing your perspectives. For more of Darling’s work, you can follow her on Instagram and TikTok.
Sources & Additional Reading:
Sofia Coppola’s ’Marie Antoinette’ Costumes Were Inspired by an “Enormous Box of Macarons” by Chris Gardner for The Hollywood Reporter, 2025
Revisiting the Romantic, Decadent Costumes of Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ by Julia Teti for WWD, 2024
Sofia Coppola: Film By Film by Phil De Semlyen for Empire, 2013
The Political Power of Marie Antoinette’s Hair by Erin Blakemore for JSTOR Daily, 2016
A Look Back at the Jewelry in ‘Marie Antoinette’ by Marion Fasel for The Adventurine, 2025
Notes on Marie Antoinette, or: the MTV Sensibilities of Sofia Coppola by Sydney Urbanek for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Eat the Rich: Close-Up on Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” by Meredyth Cole for MUBI, 2018
Marie Antoinette Gets Her Manolos—Again by Alison S. Cohn for W Magazine, 2025
Marie Antoinette. The Oscar-Winning Costumes Of A Queen. Museo del Tessuto, 2018
Marie Antoinette’s diamond bracelets sold in Geneva auction for Jeweller Magazine, 2021
Totally fantastic article, Alex, thank you!💕
This post is such eye candy. I swear I have been waiting for modern designers to bring a bustle into their dresses. Not that these dresses had them; it’s the idea of that kind of frill and structure.