Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She’s famous for her extravagant lifestyle, political controversies — and for being one of history’s most stylish queens.
And so in autumn 2025, the V&A will explore the full spectrum of Marie Antoinette’s style in a major exhibition.
Through a wide range of objects and media — from couturier’s gowns to audio visual installations — the huge blockbuster exhibition will examine how and why Marie Antoinette came to be the most fashionable queen in Europe.
The Victoria & Albert Museum’s show will be the first ever in Britain — and only the third outside France — dedicated to the 18th-century monarch.
Visitors will experience over 250 years of design, fashion, film and art, and should be prepared to have their assumptions challenged according to the curator.
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Marie Antoinette’s legacy
During the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was vilified. She was a scapegoat for France's woes, was imprisoned, and was ultimately guillotined in 1793. Yet her legacy has endured.
Today, she is remembered as a complex figure who mixed opulence, political naivety, and victimhood in a turbulent era. But her style, youth and notoriety have all contributed to a timeless appeal.
To this day, she continues to influence the worlds of fashion, photography and design, and this will be a hugely important aspect of the exhibition. So much so that — Marie Antoinette Style, as the show is called — will be sponsored by one of the world's most influential shoe designers: Manolo Blahnik.
Blahnik’s deep appreciation for Antoinette's elegance and the fashion of her era is evident in his designs. In 2021, he told Vogue magazine he’d “been mad for Marie since I was a little boy because she’s the maximum of elegance.” Expect Blahnik footwear to feature in the exhibition.
But beyond that, we as yet don’t know anything more about what visitors will get to see in the exhibition. More details are expected to be announced in early 2025.
“She is still seen as a byword for excess and frivolity” curator Sarah Grant told the Times when announcing the show. But it’s a “trope based on mythology” she said.
“Notoriety gives her some of her allure … the glamorous villainess,” said Grant. But this obscured her influence on the arts during the past 200 years. “She is really the first early modern fashion icon and arguably the most fashionable queen in history.”
Marie Antoinette exhibition tickets
Tickets for this sojourn through the fashions of the French queen have not yet gone on sale. They’re not expected to be released until spring 2025. This means we also don’t know how much it will cost. But like all shows, V&A members will get in free.
But we do know that it is not the only fashion exhibition to be held at the V&A in 2025. Others include a survey of supermodel Naomi Campbell’s career, and a bling-filled exhibition on Cartier’s glamorous history.
Marie Antoinette Style opens at the V&A South Kensington in London on 20 September 2025 and runs until 22 March 2026
— More: here's what's on at London's Wallace Collection in 2025