Versailles in the 18th century has always represented a fairy tale golden age of France which has captured the imagination of the best painters, sculptors, architects, composers and writers. Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry and Marie Antoinette — paragons of frivolity — come to mind. Their huge powdered hairstyles, even bigger hooped petticoats, flounces and frills are a source of eternal fascination for literature, cinema and the fashion world. Versailles definitely set the tone for a refined court life with customs, settings and fashion that were emulated throughout the continent. “It was indeed the place to be,” proclaimed Jean-Jacques Aillagon, president of Chateau de Versailles.
Olivier Saillard, curator of the Galliera Museum in Paris, reminds us that the Versailles art of living was evoked in every century: “The Age of Enlightenment fascinated 19th and 20th century designers and made their heads spin. They regularly quoted clothes from that period, keeping alive the memory of a century when ribbons and silk were the fashion merchants’ trademark.”
For both Versailles and fashion fans, therefore, “18th Century: Back in Fashion,” is a dream exhibition not to be missed. Just imagine the most gorgeous gowns from that century being juxtaposed with those of leading contemporary couturiers and designers who were inspired by that era. The setting alone is a delight: the splendid Grand Trianon, a retreat created for Louis XIV at the far end of the palace grounds, to be far away from the constraints of power and the crowd of courtiers. Today, it can be reached by an electric shuttle car through stately parks or by a leisurely walk through ornamental gardens, far from the hordes of tourist buses. The Grand Trianon may not be as spectacular as, say, the Hall of Mirrors in the main palace, but this Italianate series of buildings charms with its pink marble pilasters and rooms decorated with utmost delicacy and refinement, the perfect setting to contemplate the beautiful clothes on display.
The opening number is situated in the Aides-de-Camp Room which sets a martial tone to the exhibit. It faces off the late Alexander McQueen’s creation for Givenchy against 18th-century men’s suits composed of coats, long-sleeved waistcoats and breeches. McQueen, however, ironically appropriates the period men’s suit for women through a lavish redingote of turquoise faille silk with antique lace applications ornamented with crystal beads and a ruffled grey taffeta blouse. The breeches of yore are updated with boot cut trousers overlaid with grey lace. The Rococo woman of today can most definitely rock in this frock.
The quirky and provocative Vivienne Westwood who scandalized with her ripped, deconstructed and safety-pinned punk collections in the 1980s, was actually one of the notable designers who gave the Age of Enlightenment a fresh impetus in the ’90s. After years when the black deconstructed clothes of Japanese and Belgian designers were dominating the fashion consciousness, Vivienne Westwood’s “Vive La Cocotte” collection brought a fresh frivolity with its powdery colors, poufs, ribbons and passementerie. A representative gown of pink Duchesse satin and lace, inspired by Boucher’s portrait of Madame de Pompadour, stands fittingly in the Empress’s Boudoir of the Grand Trianon.
The Room of Mirrors features Karl Lagerfeld’s creations for Chanel and 18th-century French court dresses which inspired them. Known as robe á la française or sack-back gown, the French court gown had a big, flowing coat with a wide, pleated back forming a short train. Later in the century it became tighter in front, hugging the contours of the bust stiffened by a whalebone corset. The back had a double row of flat double pleats. Wearing one was a status symbol because putting it on required a servant to crawl underneath it to adjust the back laces on the inside. Lagerfeld’s whimsical version is a modern distillation of the period silhouette in virginal white with just a blue satin ribbon accent to pull the dress together.
Cristobal Balenciaga would channel Goya’s 18th century through the use of black lace and pink satin ribbons reminiscent of portraits of the Duquesa de Alba. Nicolas Ghesquiere, on the other hand, subverts that by turning values and color codes upside-down: He uses men’s clothing done in ruffly eggshell and cream lace. Waistcoats fit tightly around the bust, coats take a new form as underskirted coattails, the wrists adopt flounced pagoda sleeves characteristic of mid-18th century French court dresses, and breeches are replaced with cropped trousers. Displayed in the Empress’s bedchamber, Ghesquiere’s collection for Balenciaga has a feminine lightness and transparency despite the masculine silhouettes and the martial look of young women dressed as men.
Also in the bedchamber is an Azeddine Alaia lace-up bustier dress in broderie Anglaise, a streamlined version of the past century’s tight waists and full bosoms. The white linen chemise gown was an inspiration but “deflowered by his master scissors,” according to the curator Saillard. The laced-up top evokes whalebone corsets without the discomfort and the cut creates wide hips simulating the pannier without the pain of carrying those tedious hoops.
Thierry Mugler’s raunchy version of that era has a whiff of ’50s Hollywood, intensifying what he calls “feminine shapes associated with dominating women: ostentation, the theatrical display of the female body and cruelty, notions particular to the 18th century of Dangerous Liaisons.” The Marquise de Merteuil would definitely be at home executing one of her shenanigans while wearing one of his voluminous gowns. The location of the Mugler display? At the Chapel Room, of course.
Rei Kawakubo always explores the relationship between historical and contemporary fashion, noting how extensions, reductions and other inventions clothed and transformed the body from the Middle Ages to the Age of Enlightenment. Her removable — and movable — bum rolls emphasize the figure, whereas her zippered hoops and removable quilting evoke a late 18th-century “Amazon” that only her strange, fertile mind can conjure.
The iconoclast, Jean-Paul Gaultier, fires things up in Louis-Philippe’s Family Room, swapping men’s and women’s outfits. The period French man’s habit á la française coat turns into denim on a woman’s shoulders for his Spring-Summer 1994 collection while his 1998 “Les Marquis Touaregs” pieces combine a new vision of Marie Antoinette’s century with a relaxed, contemporary attitude. A pannier jacket deconstructs the 18th century version in lilac lamé and tulle and replaces the underlying hoop skirt with a sleek, black tube skirt.
With a surfeit of all the ornamentation that 18th century Versailles is known for, an encounter with the gowns of Yves St. Laurent is almost like the jolt of a stark realization. In his 1995 tribute to the Rococo, St. Laurent chose to restore sobriety to the period with a plain white Infanta dress in white silk damask and a black silk velvet gown that had the pannier silhouettes and tight bodices but none of the frills. Saillard admires their simplicity, “being both majestic and sober, expressing a vision that eludes time altogether. They step out of a painting generated by the mind and slide forward with
It’s almost like a chastisement of that period of excess, that “Versailles way of life” expressed in unbridled joie de vivre, subtle social graces, audacious spirits and bold tastes. True, all of it might be considered superfluous, says Jean-Jacques Aillagon at the Chateau, “yet it leaves us wanting when they are absent.”