The BBC/Canal+ TV series Marie Antoinette (2022-) has finally returned for season 2! We wrote several reviews of season one, focusing on the costumes as well as the hair and wigs. The first three episodes of season 2 are available via PBS Masterpiece, and they feature the return of the same cast from season one, including Emilia Schüle as the famed French queen. Season two focuses on the Diamond Necklace Affair, beginning in the early 1780s, and just as for season one, I’ve been entertained by the story so far. As an added bonus, while they’re still not perfect, the costumes feel more historically accurate, and many of the WTFrock elements have disappeared.
According to news reports, Marie Frémont continues to design season two’s costumes, although I can’t tell if Madeline Fontaine is also still involved as she was in season one. According to an interview with Frémont, “every piece for the 30 first main characters are made bespoke in our workshop” and supplemented by rentals from costume houses (All In The Details: Making ‘Marie Antoinette’ Season 2 Costumes Dazzle).
Let’s take a look at what we’ve seen so far in episodes one through three:
Womenswear in Marie Antoinette Season 2
Everyone continues to be color coded: blue-gray for Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, green for the comte and comtesse de Provence, and pink for Polignac. Fabrics were custom dyed in a French workshop; according to Le Parisien,
“In a thick notebook, Emmanuelle, a dyer, archives each of her attempts. Behind her, a large pot and a whole bunch of bottles allow her to concoct the magic potions that will give the textile a thousand different tones. The original fabric scrap is glued to the top of the page, then declined in an infinite number of shades of purple or yellow. Each recipe is carefully recorded. The result is incredibly refined” (bad Google translate of Création de 3 000 pièces, choix des couleurs… Les secrets des costumes de la série « Marie-Antoinette »).
Because the first episode is set during a particularly cold winter, we get some good outwear:
Inside the palace, it’s the era of the chemise à la reine, particularly for Marie-Antoinette herself. Luckily it works well as a maternity dress and replaces the truly dire maternity wear from season one. I do feel like they’re a little skimpy and could use more rumps and/or petticoats:
Compare with fashion plates of the era:
That being said, they’re also referencing the famous portrait of the queen in robe en chemise painted by Vigée le Brun, which does indeed have a less full skirt and which we see Marie-Antoinette posing for:
We also get a lot of robes à l’anglaise and the occasional redingote, both of which were very popular in this era, and these tend to be worn over fuller silhouettes. However, Frémont told Telly Visions, “we’ve generally lightened the ornamentation a little, which to our modern eye would have seemed a little overloaded.”
Two different shorter almost-spencer-type jackets show up, which seems way too early — the spencer was very much a Regency/Empire style:
According to that interview with Telly Visions, Frémont said that the chemise gown featured “all these short jackets on top.” Sadly, I think she’s misinterpreted the robe à la turque, which is cut away strongly towards the back, but is indeed a full gown:
And we get a quick glimpse of Marie-Antoinette’s stays, which at first I thought might be the transitional style with gores for the breasts and would be a leeeetle too early for this period, but on closer inspection appears to be split at the top center front in a way that’s appropriate for this era, but was usually filled in:
Hair & Headwear in Marie Antoinette Season 2
Luckily we’ve moved away from some of the worst stuff seen in season one, and overall I liked the shapes and effects with some (minor/major) quibbles about the backs.
This era is transitioning between the high hairstyles, now with more side fullness:
To the “coiffure à l’enfant” (as it was initially named), named for the style the queen wore after her second pregnancy (1781) caused a lot of hair loss. The typical look is shorter and curly on top and sides, long and straight in back:
And it’s usually styled up with LOTS of rolls and ringlets in the hair:
Our first view of Marie-Antoinette had me worried, as she’s got the right shape and curl in front, but the back is equally curly and while the long and down is good, it’s very unstyled:
Luckily things improve from there. She’s often in these structured, wider than tall looks that have really pretty curls in front:
The backs are mish-mashy — not awful, but not perfect. Instead of being down, or down and looped up, they’re often more curls:
Occasionally she goes back to a taller silhouette, which works, except for the side braid. Back braided? Yes! Side braid? No!
The only time we get REALLY big hair is at the theater:
I feel like they’re referencing the opera scene from Jefferson in Paris, but really big curly ‘dos are a thing in this era:
Polignac has some of the best hair, with curls and rolls in front; again, the backs are mish-mashy but not awful in that they’re at least differentiated with larger rolls. Best, she frequently has ribbons, feathers, and other trims building out the hair which are spot-on for the era and SO pretty:
The comtesse de Provence is miserable and so has become a raging alcoholic, which translates to totally fucked up hair in an unbelievable way:
Luckily she finds her way and her comb:
And hooray! Lamballe figures out that 18th-century hairstyles are generally symmetrical, instead of the weird, leaning, angled styles she wore in season one.
Jeanne de la Motte gets some nice waves in the front of her hair, which I liked for being what a tight curl looks like combed out and NOT an anachronistic Marcel wave:
And we get a few cute hats!
Menswear in Marie Antoinette Season 2
The boys are mostly “fine whatever,” except for Provence and Chartres’s embroidered coats:
Check out designer Marie Frémont’s and costume house La Compagnie du Costume’s Instagram posts for close-ups on how they made the these:
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
The men’s hair has massively improved, however! No more rolls that turn into twists like the weirdness we saw in season one!
Loved Beaumarchais’s style, which shows how the “toupet” (top/side hair) started moving further back on the head:
Fersen, however. Does not own a comb. It’s BAD, PEOPLE.
The Chevalier de Saint-Georges gets 1780s-appropriate hair complete with powder!
And the Count de Cagliostro has ACTUAL DREADLOCKS. Which, NO. It would be one thing if he were being played by someone with African heritage, but he’s not, and I know it’s there to make him look funky but he just looks like he needs a hackey sack so he can get to Reggae on the River:
Theatrical Costumes in Marie Antoinette Season 2
One plot point is the court staging a production of Beaumarchais’s famous play, The Marriage of Figaro, which was pivotal in the build-up to the revolution because it demonstrated a situation where the lower classes took on the upper and “won.” The court never gets to actually staging the play, just rehearsals, but then we see a professional troupe perform it in Paris.
What I liked is they clearly referenced late 18th-century Spanish dress for the costumes, particularly the majo/maja style. As I’ve written before, particularly in my review of Goya’s Ghosts, majos and majas were “lower-class Spaniards, particularly from Madrid, who wore elaborate outfits with some very unique elements that, along with their mannerisms, were read as flamboyant and cocky… [They] were considered seductive, flirty, and desirable, and as such their dress was often adapted by the Spanish upper classes.” Goya in particular is a great source for majo/maja dress:
The costumes worn by the courtiers are definitely taken from from majo/maja dress, including Saint Georges with his cofia, a netted cap with the kind of balls we now put on ball fringe (see the first Goya image above):
You can see more of his ensemble, as well as the stage actor’s version, in designer Marie Frémont’s Instagram post:
View this post on Instagram
And then Marie-Antoinette gets a jacket that has woven cap sleeves:
Which, I infer from Marie Frémont’s Instagram post, is meant to evoke the gathered contrast sleeve caps (but omits the long fitted sleeve that would be worn underneath) (side note, I’m super sad not to have seen the white ensemble with black criss-cross ribbons that you see in this slideshow!):
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The one element I’m not sure about is the comtesse de Provence’s pointy cap. Any guesses on the reference here?
Stay tuned for reviews of later episodes!
What are your thoughts on the costumes in Marie Antoinette season 2?
Find this frock flick at:
