TBT: The King’s Daughters (2000)

I thought I should watch The King’s Daughters (2000) (aka Saint-Cyr) because I saw its costumes praised very highly in several places, including it having won a César (the French Oscar) award for them. And while there were definitely things I liked, costume-wise, sadly the plot itself was a huge snooze! It’s set in 1685, and is about Official Mistress/Probably Wife of Louis XIV, Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, who set up a school for impoverished noble daughters at Saint-Cyr.

Maintenon is played by the great French actress Isabelle Huppert, but I just couldn’t get into it. There’s a lot of focus on the schoolgirls, particularly one pair who just didn’t interest me. And then the big plot point is that the girls put on a play for the French court, after which the male courtiers just go full-on attempted-rape on the girls. I gave up halfway through and just skimmed the second half.

The costumes were designed by Edith Vesperini (Van Gogh, Angelique, Resistance, Nicolas Le Floch) and Jean-Daniel Vuillermoz (The Return of Casanova, The Skin of Sorrow, Carmen, George: Untamed Spirit) and yeah, there were some things I liked! This was the era of the formal court robe:

Recueil des modes de la cour de France, 'Dame en Robbe,' Henri & Jean Baptiste Bonnart, 1683, Los Angeles County Museum of Art — *Recueil des modes de la cour de France, ‘Dame en Robbe,’ Henri & Jean Baptiste Bonnart, 1683, Los Angeles County Museum of Art*

And the introduction of the mantua (manteau in French), which looks semi-similar to our eyes but was a new style inspired by the dressing gown:

Nicolas Arnoult, "Dame de qualité en habit d'Esté," Recueil des modes de la cour de France, 1682-1683. LACMA — *Nicolas Arnoult, “Dame de qualité en habit d’Esté,” Recueil des modes de la cour de France, 1682-1683. LACMA.*

Recueil des modes de la cour de France, 'Femme de Qualité en Déshabillé Détoffe Siamoise', Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, 1687, LACMA — *Recueil des modes de la cour de France, ‘Femme de Qualité en Déshabillé Détoffe Siamoise’, Jean Dieu de Saint-Jean, 1687, LACMA*

Maintenon wears what I think is sort of a hybrid between the two, which was acceptable to me because this was a very transitional era:

The King's Daughters (2000) — The neckline and boned bodice (plus the seamlines) makes me think court robe.

She and other female courtiers (and school teachers) wear a really high version of the fontange headdress that doesn’t appear to have come into fashion until the 1690s — see those images above for how the hair/headdress was rising in the 1680s, but hadn’t quite reached this:

*Béatrice Hiéronyme de Lorraine, wearing bustled dress and fontange headdress, probably 1690s, via Wikimedia Commons*

Saint-Cyr (2000) — They were frequently made with metallic lace which was gorgeous.

Probably my favorite dress she wore (okay at least for the first half) was this black velvet riding habit with silver trim:

Two older characters wore a more mid-17th century style:

While younger ladies wore the hybrid robe/mantua that Maintenon wears:

Meanwhile, the schoolgirls all wore blue gowns that were closer to the “robe” in their back-lacing, but more mantua-ish in their looped-back skirts, along with color-coded bows to demonstrate which yera they were in and stiff sheer white fontanges:

And for the play (Racine’s Esther), which has a biblical theme, they got to add all kinds of faux-ancient/exotic/Middle Eastern elements which were pretty to look at: