Marie Antoinettes ultimate cottagecore dress was a trend started by People of colour
Tracing the origin of one of history's most scandalous dresses
Dutch born queen, Marie Antoinette stirred up quite a scandal at the time with this portrait. As this dress looked like undergarments at the time called a chemise, hence the term for this dress which is chemise a la Reine.
I would be like an official photograph of a royal in their bra and knickers today.
This also was seen as a shirk on royal duty to encourage local trade as a plain cotton dress would discourage people using the French silk industry and local crafts for luxurious gowns.
The portrait would soon be changed out but the damaged was done, Marie Antoinette was ridiculed with how scandalous the dress looked however this style of dress soon becomes popular especially as we enter the Regency era with the drastic political changes going on and opulent expressions of wealth were falling out of fashion.
One of the few surviving chemise a la Reines from the Manchester Museum dated 1893-1790
The origins
Marie Antoinette made this style of dress popular but she did not invent it. The history of this dress an be traced back to slaves on plantations in the tropics.
Slaves would have worn simple loose white garments from cloth given to them by their enslavers but the connection becomes more obvious when we look at free people of colour, especially as they were documented more through paintings.
Agostino Brunias : “Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape” (c. 1770-1796)
Here free people of colour are wearing white looser fit garments which look like the origins of the chemise a la Reine. Although not certain, people of all kinds were wearing similar garments due to the warm weather.
Linen Market, Dominica by Agostino Brunias, c. 1780, Yale Center for British Art
Here we have a wealthy white woman wearing a garment which looks more like a chemise a la Reine.
She is appropriating the head wrap and dress of the free people of colour but with more trim to flaunt her wealth and differentiate herself as a wealthy white woman. Likely a daughter or wife of a plantation owner as those were the people who had a lot of wealth at the time and would have the money for such garments.
These are the people that would be travelling from their plantations to France and would have exposed them to this style of dress.
Using a dress to further racism
"Mujer criolla y criadas" by Agostino Brunias.
Wealthy white woman were not only using all white dresses with fancy trim to show their status, but also to further racist and colourist ideals.
In this image the white woman is in front, fully lit in an all white dress and fancy version of the appropriated headwrap. The mixed race woman is behind her in a dress with a pattern on and less extravagant trim on the dress and head wrap and the black woman is in the back, poorly lit, in a servitude role with dirty, grey looking clothes.
This furthered colourist and racist ideals we still face in modern society with white being seen as the default and preferential from the paintings to the wealthy white women wearing all white dresses.
Can I make this dress then?
Although this dress is baked in this lots of racism and the blood and pain of slavery it doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.
I think it’s a nice summer dress and project to ease into historical sewing with.
However, we mustn’t forget the history and think about context. For example as a white person, wearing this garment with historical hair and accessories and going to a plantation for fun is very much in poor taste.
You can likely going to have to do further research into where it is appropriate.
Also do not forget the modern issues we face, our cotton is no longer slave made but the fashion industry still has exploitative practices behind closed doors and we should make the most sustainable and ethical choices we can with the cards we’ve been dealt.
I have made a version of the dress myself and a more in depth tutorial can be seen here.
Thank you for reading
Alisha
