Marie Antoinette's

If you have not picked up the September issue of Vanity Fair, then you must read the piece by Amy F. Collins, Toujours Couture.  She takes a look at the life of couture and its future.  With the help of Louis XIV and Antoinette, the world of couture was born.  Rose Bertin made a (and lost) a fortune and late Charles Worth pioneered seasonal collections.  You can read the article here, but pick up the issue to see the many, many wonderful images of couture throughout the years.

"Earlier, in 1945, Diana Vreeland had implored an assistant to bring back a fabric rose from Paris, as post-diluvian proof that couture had survived World War II..."

"Courage, Gallantry, Beauty, Honor: the standards of the eighteenth century always remained in view- through war, revolution, evolution, intrigue, and dishonesty- with etiquette and order the people's companion and guide.

Everything was a form of exultation and triumph...trumpets, bugles, fanfares, and banners...splendid architecture... escutcheons and trophies on palace walls and on rooftops...graceful interiors filled with objects designed to be as useful and as beautiful as the craftsman could make them...spreading gardens scented with the fresh smells of nature before petrol and pollution...fountains like huge jets of crystal...barges floating down canals beneath the stars, with musicians serenading pretty women... the language of the streets, the language of scholars.

Everything was emerging and growing-the whisper and murmur of change were everywhere. Villages were becoming towns, towns were becoming cities, cities were dominating nations. The eighteenth-century woman in Europe and America was born into a world of opening doors, of opportunity. She came forward, walking quite naturally into the vista of promise that lay before her, translating ambition into opportunity...and reality."