Get Ready With Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette famously spent quite a lot of money and time on her outfits and make-up. But what would it feel like to actually wear it? Joining Kate in this episode is the amazing Casta Hex, historical drag queen, embroiderer and textiles artist for film and TV. Casta creates all her costumes using period accurate fabrics and techniques. Layer by layer, they explore how to get ready like Marie Antoinette. This episode was edited by Natasha Hughes. It was produced by Sophie Gee, McKenna Fernandez and Georgie Turner. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Subscribe to the new Betwixt The Sheets YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@BetwixtTheSheetsPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:35Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back to Betwix the Sheets. Hello, how fabulous it is to see you once again, you little historical pervert. Yeah, I know, I know what you really are. I know why you're here. It's why I'm here as well. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast book about adults, other adults, about adult things and adults a way, covering a range of topics, news, being an adult too. Do you feel safer? I certainly feel safer. Right, let's crack on.

• 1:04Kate Lister?

  Another morning in Versailles. The birds are chirping, the water in the fountains outside is tinkling away, and the sun is already out. As it heats up, it's time to get dressed. A stockings, a chemise, a corset-like contraption, a petticoat, another petticoat, possibly another petticoat. When will it all end? I'm sweating and we haven't even put the actual dress on yet. I think I might need another lie down. At least Marie Antoinette would have had help with this. Or what it is to be a queen.

• 1:59Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister.

• 2:06Kate Lister?

  I recently went to the V and A in London to see their exhibition about the fashion influences of Queen Marie Antoinette. And it got me thinking, what was it like for her to have put on all of those clothing? How long did it take? How difficult was it? I mean, she did spend a lot of money on them. So what was it like to get into them? Today, we are getting these questions answered by the amazing and the fantastically talented Casta Hex, historical drag queen, embroiderer and textile artist. Casta creates all of their costumes using period accurate fabrics and techniques. You can absolutely listen along, but just so you know, you can now watch Betwix the

• 2:50Kate Lister?

  Sheets on our YouTube channel. And I have just seen Castor's finished look and it was truly amazing. So I think you might want to take a peek as well. This is get ready with me, Marie Antoinette style.

• 3:11Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome to Betwix the Sheets. It's only Casta Hex. How are you doing?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  I am absolutely fabulous. Genuinely, thank you so much for having me. It's really weird as a fan of the show to be on the other side of the wizard's curtain and like seeing, seeing how the sausage is made. It's really bizarre, but absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for having me.

• 3:31Kate Lister?

  How could we not have had you for this episode?

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 3:34Kate Lister?

  On getting ready with Marie Antoinette. She's your girl, right?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  She, she is my home slice. Yeah, I, I just, ever since I was a kid, I've just always had this weird connection to her, I suppose. I think.

• 3:46Kate Lister?

  Do you think that is?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I think probably being like a persecuted gay in a small coastal town. I think I always felt a little subject to like rumor and harassment that wasn't necessarily anything I'd done wrong.

• 3:57Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  And I just think, she wasn't a perfect person. None of us are, do you know what I mean? She definitely had more conservative views. She was a staunch Catholic, et cetera. But I think she was a 14 year old girl, expected to solve this complex geopolitical snafu between France and Austria, and was expected to solve it with a marriage that, you know, she wouldn't have been educated in the ways of men, certainly not educated in the ways of the complex French court etiquette system. So I just think she was up against a hard, she was having a hard time from day one. And also she was a Scorpio. So like that.

• 4:31Kate Lister?

  Oh, was she?

• 4:32Speaker 01

  That sets her up, that sets her up for a fall immediately. And she was born on All Souls Day as well, which is like a Catholic Day of Mourning. So like her birthday, she didn't even celebrate her birthday on her birthday. She celebrated the day before because it was like bad luck.

• 4:45Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, she had a bad time.

• 4:47Kate Lister?

  One of the things that I want to clear up about Marie Antoinette, because I went to the V and A exhibition on Marie Antoinette and they had one of her actual slippers and I posted it on social media. And then all of the comments were people going, well, she was 14. She was 14. It's like, well, she was 14 and then she wasn't 14.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  And she grew up.

• 5:02Kate Lister?

  And then she grew up. So I just, I feel like we should say that for anyone who's unsure. It's like, she was 14 and then she wasn't.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:08Kate Lister?

  Do you think that Marie Antoinette is a bit of a gay icon?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  She is a gay icon. I think because of that, the, the way that she was misunderstood, misrepresented in the press. I'm sure you've seen the scandalous sex pamphlets about her with, you know, Thomas Jefferson showing her her royal bush and, you know, all of that kind of thing. So I think the over-sexualisation of someone who necessarily isn't a sexual being and the fashion, we get, we've got to talk about the fashion. She was the leader of fashion at the time.

• 5:37Kate Lister?

  Yes, she was.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  So I think, I think she is a gay icon because of the persecution and the, the beauty.

• 5:44Kate Lister?

  Can you talk me through your, well, let's start with the, with the makeup and the hair, because this is inspired by Marie Antoinette.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yes, so disclaimer, my face is not an elegant, delicate 14 year old Austrian princess's face. My grandmother was German, so I do have some of that sort of bloodline. So my nose is not like a period accurate way, like my eyes are a drag makeup, but this is as close as a drag queen can get, frankly. So Marie's makeup would have started with a white face powder that sort of was ubiquitous in France. In England, we don't see face powder as much. So the face powder, contrary to popular opinion, wasn't an arsenic paint like Elizabeth the First used.

• 6:27Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  It would have been ground orisroot or rice powder. There's a fabulous book called The American Duchess' Guide to Beauty that has like recipes for making period makeup and rouge and things. So yeah, she would have started with a white face powder. Then the blush, which was applied in an inverted triangle, not sort of high up on the cheeks in a circle like people tend to do. That would have been made of either carmine, which is crushed cautionial beetles, which Skittles used to be coloured with, but they're not anymore, or alkanet root or Brazil wood, which would be diluted down in alcohol to make a sort of, it wasn't like a thick salve or a powder. It was like a liquid blush. It was more like a liquid lip stain that applied.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then the lips were the same, but they would thicken it with beeswax.

• 7:16Kate Lister?

  Wow. And you say that, you know, she would have done it, but she wouldn't have done that.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  No, Marie Antoinette would famously, Louis would get up between six and seven AM. She would get up between nine and 10.

• 7:28Kate Lister?

  Early riser.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:29Kate Lister?

  Not in the way that counted, but he was an early riser.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. No. Yeah, so she would get up between nine and 10 and then would have le grand levé, where she would go through the ridiculous, if you've seen the Marie Antoinette movie, that ridiculous ritual of etiquette, which was set in place by her great grandfather, Philippe the Duke of Orleans, who was another fashion trendsetter and queer icon. So the etiquette, she hated it.

• 7:53Kate Lister?

  It sounds like it was really intense. This is like a load of people coming into your bedroom, waking you up. And then there's rules around who can hand you stuff and what they're going to hand you. And the whole thing must have taken, well, how long did it all take?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Reportedly, Marie Antoinette, if she got up at 10, wouldn't leave until like 12:01. So it was like a two and a half, basically the same as any drag queen, frankly. It was a two and a half hour, three hour process. And I think it would have taken longer because as you said, you had to recognise the highest rank in the room. So you had to always be on guard. So you'd be taking your gloves and then some rando in a beehive would turn up and take the place of whoever's taking your gloves. And before you did that, you had to bow three times or curtsey three times. So everything would have taken just a ludicrous amount of time. Yeah, I think she would have hated it.

• 8:41Kate Lister?

  She did hate it. And we've got to talk about the hair, because a lot of the time when people think of Marie Antoinette, they think of that huge, that huge wig, what was that called?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  The poof.

• 8:51Kate Lister?

  The poof.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sorry, what are you calling me? I'm sorry. HR. Yeah, so the poof as we know it was basically weirdly, so there's a, there's a bit of a thing about that, there's a bit of a fallacy. So the poof was the wig, but the poof was also a tiny little hat that was basically like a gathered circle of organza to add extra height to your hair. And the poof hat was allegedly invented by Marie's personal hairdresser, Monsieur Leonard O T. So he also did a bit of millinery as well. So the hair would be, the big giant poofs would be the woman's own hair dressed over a structure of wire, cane, horsehair pads, or sometimes a donut cushion stuffed with cork.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And the hairstyles would be set in place with a wax made of, called permatum, that was made of animal fat with oils, scented oils in, and then powdered on top with a, similar to the face powder, a starchy powder that would give it that white iconic look. Or we also see pink and mint green hair powder in the period in a few portraits, which is very exciting, very camp. So yeah, it would be dressed up. And Marie Antoinette famously had her hair set every single day. And I believe in one year of her life, they went through like 7,000 livers worth of hair styling product just for Marie in one year. So she had hers done every day, but most women would have it done once a fortnight and then they would just sleep in an upright

• 10:20Speaker 01

  position in like a dentist's chair situation the rest of the time.

• 10:24Kate Lister?

  There are records of like, it's not funny, like some women dying because their hair caught fire on the candle. Because these things like, they're really tall.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, the typically, the, this one is not a poof. This is a hedgehog hair. But the highest one Marie was recorded as wearing was the one with the famous La Belle Pool ship on top, and that was 60 centimetres from bottom of chin to the top of the head.

• 10:49Kate Lister?

  That's like, you could only do that if you're a queen with other people carrying you, surely. Like, you can't go down to Aldi with that on your head.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  No, absolutely no way. And I have. Well, it wasn't Aldi, it was a Lidl. It was a Lidl. But yeah, so there's a lot of very funny pastiches and cartoons and written documents of ladies like clambering out of carriages like, like Frankenstein's monster trying to like, keep their hair. Perfect.

• 11:15Kate Lister?

  I was recently reading in this book, and it was called Queen of Fashion, What Marie Antoinette War to the Revolution. It was by Caroline Weber. And she was arguing that the poof hairstyle was actually a really important way for women to make a statement about who they were or about things that were happening at the time.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fascinating. I, funny enough, on the train up, I was reading, carriage, sorry, I won't break the immersion, on the carriage up, I was reading some stories about hair specifically. And there's a very funny recounting. I don't remember who it was, but it was a wealthy woman went to the French opera with a bunch of miniature cherry trees with cherries hanging on in her hair and like a miniature garden scene. And apparently she went to the Paris Opera and she was in a balcony seat and apparently she got up, knocked herself and all of the stuff fell like off her hair into the theatre orchestra pit below. And her father was like trying to catch, catch cherries like, you know, a seeker trying to catch the snitch as his daughter sort of tumbled over the railing of the, of the theatre. She was fine.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  But yeah, the accidents could happen, like, like you said, with the fire. I mean, there's a scene in The Duchess with Keira Knightley, where she's drunk and this sort of hair, hedgehog hair. This was the reference actually for that hair. And she stumbles into a candelabra and her hair sets on fire very dramatically. It did happen.

• 12:34Kate Lister?

  I mean, Marie Antoinette was known for that hairstyle. But then, as all great fashion icons do, she suddenly changed the script. She went like, it's like when Madonna went cowboy boots are back. She was just like, right, no more big hair. And then she suddenly went with like, the, the style that you've got now, which is, it doesn't look very simple to us, but for them, it's suddenly much more simple in that it's not like six foot with a chip in it.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, being someone who has worn both, has performed in both, has been in it for extended periods of time, those original wigs give you like migraines, like there is a weird, there is horrible pressure on your whole spine.

• 13:10Kate Lister?

  Of course, there would be.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  And ladies were fainting. They were having episodes because of the way of the hair. Especially because also, it wasn't a wig. For me, I can take it off. I can have a shower. For them, it was their hair. And it was bound in with all this layers of grease and fat and powder and bound around wire bird cages essentially. So they couldn't get out of it easily and quickly. So it did, did give you headaches. But yeah, so the poofs hit their height in between 1770 and 1780. That's when they hit their height, but the highest was about 1774, 75.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  And then basically, France was the forerunner of fashion, as we know. And then as we get more influences from sort of neoclassicism and naturalism, the styles become simpler.

• 14:02Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  And we go towards the like, the wafty petit trianon phase and the hair becomes less structured. It's more English in style. This sort of hairstyle was worn by like the Duchess of Devonshire and the scandalous Lady W. And it becomes this lovely, it's my favourite hairstyle ever. The sort of hedgehog, what it was called, shaped sort of quaff.

• 14:26Kate Lister?

  And she was also known in a couple of paintings that, that she just had her own hair, which must have been very daring for the time.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was, I think it's the equivalent of like, when you see Lady Gaga not with like some insane thing.

• 14:40Kate Lister?

  Yeah, like no makeup.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Step back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:42Kate Lister?

  Yeah, when you're like, oh, wow, okay, that's what you look like.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  You're a person. Yeah. You're not this like bejewelled earbud, essentially, that, you know, she would just wafting around us.

• 14:51Kate Lister?

  We've got to talk about the shift because that's a very deliberate choice that we started with that, because the shift is a very important garment for the history of Marie Antoinette. So first of all, please tell us what a shift is and tell us about Marie Antoinette's shift.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Thank you. Yeah. So the shift through all of history, from like early doors history, like the 12th, 11th century. Everyone's foundational undergarment across the board was a flax linen shift because your outer garments were often wool silk if you were rich and you couldn't easily wash them. So your underthings, you'd have multiple shifts, even commoners would have two or three that were laundered regularly. And they basically wick moisture away from your body and absorb sweat and oil so it doesn't stain the precious outer garments that you're wearing. Shifts were, tended to be slightly longer for women, slightly shorter for men.

• 15:44Kate Lister?

  Men were wearing them too?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were called shirts, but they were the same garment. They're constructed exactly the same way. So they're constructed, can't get my banyan off very easy. So they're constructed with a gore, with a gusset that's a T shape. So making a shift is a very good beginner sewing project because it's two rectangles for the sleeves, one for the body and two triangles under the arms and for the sides to give extra flair. Women were not wearing underwear, which gives that Fragonard's, the swing painting new meaning, because he's basically just upskirting that woman.

• 16:13Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  So yeah, women were not wearing underwear. Men weren't either. They were just tucking their shirt sort of around their situation.

• 16:19Kate Lister?

  Everybody's wearing them. And just for anyone that isn't watching this on YouTube, and I will say by the way, that Casta Hex makes all of her own outfits. So that's extra, extra impressive. But the shift is basically, it's like, it's just like a plain cotton long dress item garment.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:37Kate Lister?

  Like a nightie, it looks like.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  It's essentially what the woman wears when she chucks the heart of the ocean over the railing of the Titanic. It's like essentially, it's just a shaped nightgown, essentially, that's linen. Expensive ones, especially in the Renaissance, we see Italian shifts that are super gathered, covered in lace, covered in pin tucks and embroidery. The 18th century ones tended to be just a sort of linen shape. But if you were, if you were wealthier, you would have silk ones that were a bit sheerer for special occasions, et cetera.

• 17:08Kate Lister?

  I bet Marie Antoinette had some nice shifts.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I can imagine. Yeah.

• 17:12Kate Lister?

  But at the, at the end of her life, when she was imprisoned, all of her finery was taken away and she was wearing only a shift.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Yes, there, there are mixed, I believe there are mixed sort of records because obviously after the revolution, the Great Terror, and then the White Terror, we lost so many documents, especially when like the revolutionaries had this weird thing of like how the Nazis wanted to get rid of all of the evidence of the horrors.

• 17:34Kate Lister?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was just a thing you did, you know? So we lose a lot of it. There are some reports that she certainly wasn't wearing silks. I believe she probably would have been wearing very simple gowns because we have records from her atelier, her stylist, Madame Rose Bertin, who she, there were orders going to Marie in the Temple Prison, but they were, it was specifically her morning gown for after Louis was executed. So she did have at least one dress that was for nice, but it wasn't silk, it wasn't embroidered, it wasn't covered in lace. It was very, very simple.

• 18:08Kate Lister?

  There's a story as well, and I'm not, I hope that this is true, but the story goes that when she was sentenced to death, the woman that was looking after her in the prison cell, that she, she recorded that Marie found in this small hole that she'd been hiding it away, just one bright, brilliant white shift that she'd squirreled away for her execution day.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  I believe that is, from what I've read, I believe that's true, which honestly, style icon to the end. And it's very weirdly similar to, because she was the great times five granddaughter of Mary Queen of Scots. So it does have that weird like Catholic martyrdom. I'm saving this. I'm going out in a blaze of looking as glamorous as I possibly can. Obviously, her hair was shaved and stuff, short, so she didn't look as glamorous. There's a horrible, almost caricature drawing of her on the, the wagonette to be taken to her execution, where she looks like a witch essentially with a, a cap and these little frazzles of hair sticking out. But she was as elegant as she could have been till the end and I.

• 19:11Kate Lister?

  And one of the things I think is really interesting about that, apparently, and again, I only learnt it researching for when I was going to talk to you, white was a very symbolic colour because it was, it was the white of the Bourbons. It was a, it was a royal colour and the revolutionaries did not like it. So the fact that she went to her death wearing white, that is, that's Mary Queen of Scots in her red martyr dress. That's a fashion fuck you.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:38Kate Lister?

  Up until the end. I mean, you've got it.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Hand it down, the, the family line.

• 19:42Kate Lister?

  That's amazing, isn't it?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Wild, isn't it?

• 19:43Kate Lister?

  It is. So we're going to add to your incredible outfit now.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's going to be fun. Trossed up like a turkey.

• 19:50Kate Lister?

  And we will be back shortly.

• 19:56Kate Lister?

  Well, looking absolutely radiant and we're not even finished yet.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Thank you. I feel great. My spleen is touching my esophagus, so I know the stays are doing their job.

• 20:05Kate Lister?

  Stays. Now, for anyone who's not a fashion historian, is a stay a corset?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yes. So when corsetry first starts appearing, it starts appearing in sort of Elizabethan times because Tudor clothes were boned, were stiffened with canvas and reed, but they were what was called a kurtle. So the gown underneath the big sort of Henrican gown was stiffened itself. Each gown was stiffened. You didn't wear a separate stiffened thing. And then as we get into the Elizabethan, we start seeing what was called a pair of bodies because they were made in two pieces that you laced up the front and the back. And we see them on Elizabeth's, we see a pair that allegedly belonged to Elizabeth and we see some on a statue of her. I believe it was a burial statue.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  So we know that was when they first appeared, but that was only for the upper echelon. And then as we get into the 17th and 18th century, they become more ubiquitous across the board and they become called stays.

• 21:07Kate Lister?

  Now, what is the point of this garment? Is it just for tips up like in Bridgerton?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yes. So stays are sort of a few fold. They provide support to the bust. They give a...

• 21:18Kate Lister?

  You'd need that, wouldn't you? Especially if you're a big, a big girl.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Big girl. Yeah. And they, they support the bust and they give you a more elegant, upright posture. They also help, wearing a pair of stays helps carry the weight of the gowns and the hair because you've got a sort of solid base.

• 21:38Kate Lister?

  Yes, you do. Like you can take a right hook to the belly wearing that and be all right.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's essentially an 18th century stab proof silk covered vest. So that is the other purpose, but then the other purpose is to force the body into the fashionable, conical silhouette. So it's fashion, but it is, I would say mainly for use rather than just style, I would say.

• 22:02Kate Lister?

  Shall we bust the corset myth? The one that still keeps going around?

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Please, I hate it.

• 22:07Kate Lister?

  I got so shouted out when I was still on Twitter because I made that mistake. I said that corsets cause women to faint and I hadn't got the memo yet. I hadn't seen the updated research and the fashion historians just absolutely just dog piled me. And rightly so, they were right to do it.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a difficult myth. I think it's perpetuated a lot. Controversial opinion. I think it's perpetuated a lot by actresses who are doing PR for a period show and for social media clips and things. They want to say, oh, I had a terrible time in the corset. And interviewers will always ask about it. Sometimes it happens because the corset is done up too tightly by fitters on set. Sometimes I know for a fact, some of my friends worked on Harlots and apparently the ladies on Harlots were having competitions as to who could reduce the most. And Samantha Morton famously in Harlots has the most amazing shelf of bust.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  So I think that happens. There's a, the making of them sometimes isn't a hundred percent or they're being put in corsets that weren't made for that actress's body. So they all fit and then they're tight. Or they're just wearing them for too long. That, that can happen. And also it takes some getting used to. I would always say if an actress is going to be wearing a corset, she should really have it weeks ahead of the shoot. So she can start getting used to it.

• 23:23Kate Lister?

  But it's not true that women were just fainting regularly from wearing corsets?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  No, I think they're probably more likely to have been fainting from like malnourishment, pollution, alcohol. Like I think, I think there was more to it than just, it changes how you breathe. It does. But I've performed in these, this exact pattern, not these stays, these are my fancy ones, in 34 degree summer heat at a Pride, doing high kicks for nine hours and I was fine. And, and like you can horse ride in them. I've horse ridden in them. They are, you can jump, you can split, you can do the whole situation.

• 23:59Kate Lister?

  And Marie Antoinette was a big horse rider as well.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yep. She loved a bit of the equestrian arts. Absolutely.

• 24:04Kate Lister?

  She did. And she would have been wearing fancy stays, wouldn't she?

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Actually, we do have, there are very few articles of Marie's clothing that still exist. But in the Palais Galeria in France, there is a pair of her stays that still exist. I have seen them. They are tiny. They are a lovely sage green silk and you can see 360 around them. It's very breathtaking to be so close to something that was worn literally close to her heart, you know?

• 24:31Kate Lister?

  Yeah. Dare I ask what's underneath the shift?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Underneath the shift? As in like under things?

• 24:39Kate Lister?

  Stockings, garters.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, sorry. So.

• 24:45Kate Lister?

  Now branching out into OnlyFans.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I just immediately think, yeah, OnlyFans.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  I have thought about it and it would just be me in Victorian underwear, very slowly undoing one button of a hundred button pair of boots.

• 24:56Kate Lister?

  Oh, I love that. Just flashing an ankle.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. In fact, I did a silly poster about that on my Instagram that I illustrated. So yes, so the, on your legs, you are wearing stockings. They would have been knitted, knitted silk generally.

• 25:12Kate Lister?

  What look like very long over the knee socks.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, essentially.

• 25:17Kate Lister?

  Except they're not the stockings, but just for anyone who's unfamiliar, that's what they look like.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they just go over the knee. Generally they were ivory. In earlier periods, they tended to be red because there was a belief that red was a healthy colour that kept you warm.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  We also see, these aren't embroidered, but there was a fashion for what was known as clocked stockings, which involved very elaborate triangles of embroidery that kind of went up from the ankle to about sort of there. So yeah, they were very fashionable. People would have lots of pairs. They would be, you would wear thinner silk for, for daywear and then you could wear thicker woolen ones for later. And they were held up, there was no elastane, no elastic. So they were held up with a garter. So this one, it's just a silk ribbon, basically tied. If you really wanted them to not fall down, you'd roll them back over the garter.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And garters, as you, I'm sure will enjoy, often were embroidered with sexy, saucy languages, often in French. Like they'd say like, like love hearts, like touch me, kiss me, you know, that kind of thing on the garters.

• 26:20Kate Lister?

  I didn't know that.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were, they were quite a sexy little language unto themselves. I mean, these ones are just sort of flowers and bows and a cupid's arrow.

• 26:27Kate Lister?

  But they still are sexy garters, aren't they? Even, we don't wear garters anymore, but you can still buy them for like hen dos and things like that.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  You mainly see them just for brides, don't you? As like part of the like, you know, the three piece suite, as we call it in Essex. Do you know, garter stockings, bra, pants, three piece suite. It's not three pieces, more than that, but we in Essex are not known for it.

• 26:47Kate Lister?

  Let's talk about the shoes. Cause if there's one piece of fashion Marie Antoinette is widely known for, it's her shoes. She loved her shoes.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yep. She did love a shoe. I believe at the height of her everything, she was being sent by her court cobbler, like seven pairs of shoes a week.

• 27:02Kate Lister?

  That's a lot of shoes.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  It's a lot of shoes. So shoes at the time were centrally lasted, which meant that there wasn't a left and a right. The shoes were just one shape. So they can be a little bit uncomfortable.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  They, they have what's called a Louis heel, which is this very specific sort of kitten heel shape, which were made of wood, just covered in leather or silk. If you were going outside, sometimes you'd have a sort of separate overshoe, kind of like a snow shoe that you'd like tie on to protect your embroidered silk ones.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  But yeah, she, she loved her shoes and yeah, she got sent lots and lots of pairs of them for, you know, for my cobbler.

• 27:42Kate Lister?

  And she also had tiny feet because there was shoes that did belong to her at the V and A museum. And I remember stood looking at it going, she, she was quite tall as well, apparently. Tiny feet.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did see them. And I mean, I'm a size nine. I have to get mine specially made. So that, yeah, they, they were tiny. I was quite shocked as well, to be fair.

• 28:03Kate Lister?

  And all of this would have been brought to her by an array of different servants and ladies in waiting and various people and all part of this hours long dressing ritual in the morning.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, presented on a pillow, literally. In fact, weirdly, the shoes, I believe, were the, were one of the items that were sort of reserved for ladies in waiting, as in not nobility, because it was seen as slightly demeaning to, to like do that part of it. But everything was an honour. So I'm sure if there was a princess of the blood who swaned in, like Princess de Lombard or, you know, someone like that, then they probably would have done it. But often the shoes were the first thing you put on because once you're in a stays, you can't then bend down to buckle your shoes up.

• 28:42Kate Lister?

  We're talking to the curator at the V and A and she was saying that there's a reason that it's mostly her shoes that survive of all of her clothes. And that's because anything that could have been refashioned and repurposed was. So dresses, they can be reused and turned into things, but shoes, not so much.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Dress fabric was so expensive.

• 29:00Kate Lister?

  We forget that, don't we?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  We cannot put into context how expensive they were. For the gown that I will be wearing later and I have worn, probably would have cost the equivalent of about £5,000 in now money, back then, with the lace and with everything involved in it. So if you're, and that gown is not a court gown. That is a sort of standard day picnic dress. I've done the maths in terms of, I've added up the yardage for the silk because silk was narrower in the past than it was today. Under half as wide. So it's double the amount. So one gown might be 20 yards of silk, 30 yards of silk. And each yard could start at like nine shillings, but could go to like 20, 30 pounds per yard if it's an incredible metallic brocade, for instance.

• 29:44Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  So one court gown, like a robe de la cour, could be like 80,000 pounds worth in today's money if it has loads of lace, loads of beautiful fabric, big wide skirts. But like you said, one of the reasons that we have that sackback gown with the draped cape at the back is to preserve the fabric's yardage. So those gowns were quite cleverly sewn. They were basically just pleated onto the body and then only stitched at the side. So they could be unpicked and restyled. So a lot of gowns from the 18th century did get refashioned into later styles and into Regency and even into Victorian styles.

• 30:25Kate Lister?

  So what's the next item that you would add to this ensemble?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  So the next item that you'll add to this ensemble is the fabulous bum pad, which is basically how you get a BBL in the 18th century.

• 30:37Kate Lister?

  Oh my goodness. How do I describe this for anyone who's listening? This looks like that thing that you put around your neck to sleep in on a plane.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yep, yeah, it's a neck pillow. It's a big padded croissant.

• 30:50Kate Lister?

  That's the one, a big padded croissant. And what do you do with this?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  So the bum pad didn't originate in the 18th century. You see it in the Tudor period to support the weird sort of Spanish farthing gals and the drum farthing gals. But it was really just a shelf to put the bigger cane supports on. And then in the 18th century, the bum pad is, it serves two purposes. One is it gives you a fun shape that they wanted. And two, it keeps your skirts away from your feet. So you're less likely to trip over them when you're walking up and downstairs. Yep. So there's two reasons for it.

• 31:24Kate Lister?

  Okay. So this would be tied around your waist, shuffled to the back, and this would give you a bootylicious booty.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, a big Rihanna butt. So these bum pads, they began with the pagnies that we see at court, which is French.

• 31:38Kate Lister?

  A pagnie?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  A pagnie is a sort of, so they started with what was called pocket hoops that were a smaller sort of cane structure, essentially like a basket at the front of a bike, which is where the word pagnie, we still use that word, right? It's French for basket. So they were sort of cane structures that tied around the waist and they gave you an extended hip line at the sides. The front and the back were left flat. And the reason that was done was to show off your expensive fabric, right? So you have basically like a walking gallery on your hips of just this unadorned, beautiful giant bit of fabric, which was covered in trim and stuff, right? So we start with the pagnie. And then as we move into the latter part of the century into sort of about 1770, 1780,

• 32:24Speaker 01

  again, like we were talking, it moves more towards neoclassicism, this sort of ancient Greek, Roman influence becomes more of a thing inspired by like the poets of the time and that kind of thing. And the architecture as we see is very Greco-Roman.

• 32:37Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  And the fullness from the sides graduates round to the back into what's called either a false rump, a bum pad, a split bum. And we see some hilarious cartoons from the period of like women trying on these ludicrously caricatured bum pads in shops. This one is actually quite small. This is a modest bum pad. I have ones that are like three times.

• 33:00Kate Lister?

  Do you know how big Marie Antoinette's bum was?

• 33:03Speaker 01

  We did.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Um, well, I think, I think a lady's measurements are probably something. Yeah, yeah. I think, I don't know for sure. And we, we don't have, because of everything that happened to her, and like you said earlier, that her gowns would be given to ladies in waiting and repurposed once they had seen their, their season on her, if you like. We don't have many gowns of hers. I think we have one that was repurposed in the Victorian period into a different shape. So it's not as it would have been cut.

• 33:34Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  But I think based on her status, the fact that she was a patron of the Lyon silk weavers, the French silk industry, I think she would have been wearing quite sizable underskirts.

• 33:48Kate Lister?

  Yeah, right. All right, what's next?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  So next up, we have a petticoat, which, basic linen understructure. You'd wear one or two, depending on the amount of volume you wanted. And if it was cold, you'd wear one that was either made of like flannel or wool, or there are quilted ones that look like beautiful silk duvets that basically tie around the waist. Spectacular embroidery on some of the ones we have, often satin. So you just get the play of light with the sort of the quilting and the embroidery.

• 34:21Kate Lister?

  Well, then let's get it on.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 34:23Kate Lister?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 34:30Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Castor after this short break.

• 34:37Kate Lister?

  In case you weren't aware, World Mental Health Day takes place in October. And I don't know about you, but I'm taking this as a reminder to practise some proper self-care, saying no to plans I don't want to go to, guilt-free snacking and Halloween movie marathons. It's also the perfect time to check in with yourself and your mental health. For many, it can mean taking that step and speaking to a professional who can help and guide you through any difficulties you're having. But often when you try to do that, it's still way harder than it should be. A lot of online therapy platforms don't accept insurance at all, which means even during a month focused on mental health, you're stuck paying out of pocket or signing up for an expensive monthly subscription.

• 35:21Kate Lister?

  This is where Rula comes in. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, making the average copay just $15 per session. That's real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense. Because the whole point of World Mental Health Day is making sure people actually get help, not just think about it. And Rula sticks with you throughout your journey, checking in to make sure your care is actually helping you move forward. With World Mental Health Day this October, it's a good reminder that taking care of your mental health can start with one step. Visit rula.com/shets to get started. That's R U L A dot com slash S H E E T S.

• 36:03Kate Lister?

  You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 36:10Kate Lister?

  Hello, Betwixters. I'm jumping here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that.

• 36:39Kate Lister?

  Right, let's get on with it.

• 36:53Kate Lister?

  So we've got, is that a petticoat on now?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've got our petticoat on. Yep, yep, yep.

• 36:58Kate Lister?

  And very interestingly, we have a pocket.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so pockets.

• 37:04Kate Lister?

  Oh, hang on, I've got a pocket too.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, go on.

• 37:07Kate Lister?

  There we go. Here's one Castor prepared earlier.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Blue pizza.

• 37:12Kate Lister?

  This is beautiful. And this is, this is a tie-on pocket.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yep, so pockets were a separate bag essentially, just because historically, women have never really had pockets purposely thought of in their clothing until reasonably recently. I think often that was a, it was a kind of marriage misogyny thing of like women shouldn't have their own money. I think it was that kind of holdover.

• 37:33Kate Lister?

  What do you need a pocket for?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, would, yeah. You might have like revolutionary pamphlets in there. So pockets were generally sewn in pairs. So they would be called a pair of pockets, but I only really like the one because the two, just I find it a bit cumbersome at times. So they're essentially a sort of little kidney shaped bag that is bias bound off. And you pop, you pop whatever you want in it. I keep my fan in it. You could keep a little snuff box in, you could keep some like powders in that were very popular in the French court for recreational use. You could put a little jar of scent in it. You could put dance cards, fans, you know, handkerchiefs, that kind of thing. So pockets famously just tie on around your waist.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  There was an epidemic of people's pockets coming untied and falling down and losing their stuff, or even cut purses stealing women's stuff by sort of slashing the tie and then picking up the pocket on the street and just running off with it. There's a famous nursery rhyme about pockets. Yeah, that's very, very sweet and is sort of going on about like what happens if you drop your pocket and losing all your money.

• 38:44Kate Lister?

  Yeah. So you've tied this on over your petticoat. Would that be the normal place to have it?

• 38:49Speaker 01

  So there's sort of a bit of a, not contention, but like difference of like fashion historians and people like me who sort of recreate history, historical dress. A lot of people will put the pocket on over the bum roll or under the bum roll. So it's the closest layer to the body. Because basically the pocket is accessed by lining up the pocket opening with the side openings in the skirt, because skirts tie one sort of flap around the front, that's the back, and then the same likewise. But I like to keep my pocket on top of my petticoat. So it's one less layer to try and fish my arm through to get like my phone or whatever is in there out.

• 39:27Kate Lister?

  Now, we still haven't finished this and you're three layers in.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're many layers deep and we're not done yet.

• 39:34Kate Lister?

  Is this, it's, today it's, what's the temperature outside? About 28 degrees outside. Is this the kind of thing that, that you're going to tell me? Actually, it's very cool when you've got it all on.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Um, I am not going to be around the bush. When I get out of period clothes, it is like Daniel Craig getting out of the sea. Like for me personally, um, is pretty bad, but the linen does wick sweat away.

• 40:00Kate Lister?

  It's a breathable fabric.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. The, the stays are not uncomfortable. They're about three layers of fabric and the boning, which in mine is plastic, but in the day would have been reed or baleen whalebone. Sometimes steel, that was also a thing. Um, so I'm hot, but not uncomfortably so. This is a lovely air conditioned room, which thank the gods for that because otherwise I would be melting.

• 40:24Kate Lister?

  And it's a bit of a myth, well, it's a complete myth that people in the past weren't interested in personal hygiene and certainly Marie Antoinette, we know, bathed every day, right? Every morning.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yes. Marie famously would have what I would imagine from like a body feel would have been like a walk on Brighton beach because her bath would be full of, uh, marshmallow, lily bulbs, rose petals, various roots and, and berries and fruits and things. And she would sit in her bath and she would wear a shift and a cap and she would knit, she would eat breakfast, she would take visitors in her bath.

• 40:58Kate Lister?

  Talking.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a whole, a whole thing. So I imagine it would have been quite nice, but I, I don't know if I'd want to sit on a lemon because I believe there were lemons floating around in that. Milk as well. I believe there was Ass's milk as well. It was a whole Cleopatra-y ritual for her.

• 41:15Kate Lister?

  Smell was actually very important to her, wasn't it?

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah. She notoriously was obsessed with, um, neroli, orange blossom. Cornflowers were her favorite flower because she said they reminded everyone of her eyes. Um, so she was very about scent and the French court was, I mean, even their like, their eggs in the morning would have orange flower water in. It was the perfume of Versailles that was sort of over this, this like body odor and.

• 41:43Kate Lister?

  Well, that's the thing, isn't it? It's because, because they didn't have deodorant and because they didn't have silly bang, everyone is just sweating into their clothes. So that everyone must have been very aware of the fact, you know, like bad breath, smelly feet, all these things. Now that you can just nip down to boots and get something to treat that, they couldn't have done that. So everyone is very heavily perfumed.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, people, people did change their clothes, like their, their outer garments at Versailles, certainly in the, in, you know, lower echelon, probably not, but people in Versailles would, would cycle through outfits if it was particularly hot and they would just hang them up on sort of pegs in their dressing room. Hangers weren't really a thing. They would sort of have like a row of like a kid's cloakroom type pegs and they'd, they'd hang the gowns up, cycle through them, give them an airing out. But yes, I imagine Versailles would have been kind of a cesspit with, with no proper plumbing, with going to toilets behind screens and under stairs and people riding, people probably smoking, people dancing the night away, having danced at Versailles myself. It is very sweat

• 42:47Speaker 01

  inducing with 500 people in giant gowns everywhere. So yeah, I imagine it was pretty, pretty smelly.

• 42:53Kate Lister?

  And if you're the queen, you can do everything that you can to smell as good as you possibly can.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I suppose I probably would imagine Marie would also have slightly less re, refining to do in that air because I probably, she probably wasn't doing a lot or like moving around a lot.

• 43:10Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  She had to do the Versailles Glide, which having done it is, is a workout.

• 43:14Kate Lister?

  Yeah, that's just, you sort of squat, but the skirt covers it. So it looks like you're kind of.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  On wheels, like you're on, like you're on a Segway. Like, yeah, like you're on a Heelys. Yeah. Marie perfected the Versailles Glide. She was known for her gracefulness.

• 43:27Kate Lister?

  I love that.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  So I imagine she would have, and also every, everything in Versailles stairs, everything is stairs. So many stairs in that place, so many stairs. And the gardens are absolutely acres and acres and acres. So if you go from like the steps of Versailles to like her village in the Petit Trionon, you are talking like a 20 minute walk.

• 43:46Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:47Kate Lister?

  How many other layers have we got to do?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  So we have a silk petticoat.

• 43:52Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  And then we have the gown itself. And then we have things like caps, fish shoes, uh, jewels and that kind of thing. So there's still a couple more layers to go.

• 44:01Kate Lister?

  Let's crack on, let's do it.

• 44:07Kate Lister?

  Well, it's starting to come together now.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're getting there. It's sort of the ensemble.

• 44:12Kate Lister?

  It is. All right. So talk me through this because obviously I, I was lucky enough to see you actually putting this on off camera. This isn't a one-piece dress, is it? There's two bits to this.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So the skirt is another petticoat, is the.

• 44:27Kate Lister?

  Another petticoat.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  It's made exactly the same as the linen one, except this is a silk taffeta.

• 44:32Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Um, and tied up with silk ribbons rather than a linen tape. Um, made exactly the same, no, not nothing different. Um, oftentimes if a gown hid the back of a, uh, a skirt, we would, you see piecing on original gowns where the fancy silk was at the front or the embroidery was at the front. And then there was like just plain either cheaper silk or like just random scraps of whatever in the bit that would be hidden to save, to save money. So yes, we've got the skirt and then we've got the gown proper. This is a robe à la anglais, an English gown. Um, so it does up in the front. Most people do it up with pins so that it was adjustable, but there were hooks and eyes and mine is done up with hooks and eyes.

• 45:14Kate Lister?

  And is the color palette original to the 18th century as well?

• 45:17Speaker 01

  I try to be as true to life with my colors as possible. We do see some surprisingly vivid shades of color in the 18th century. We see like raspberry pink and fuchsia pink men's suits. There's a few extants. We see vivid saffron yellow. Um, but the French court was notorious for its inspiration of like garden color palettes.

• 45:36Kate Lister?

  She loved the garden, didn't she?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  So this color palette, for people who are just listening, it's ivory and then there is a stripe of sort of light fawn and a sort of light teal. And then there's what's called celadon green, which is similar to mint, but slightly yellower.

• 45:51Kate Lister?

  What's really interesting about Marie Antoinette's fashion choices is that she starts off playing the game of, uh, the French court where she's wearing all of the trappings of royalty, the things that just look like you'd never be able to wear that unless you actually had a staff of people, which she did.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:08Kate Lister?

  But then she moves into a different type of fashion. And this is her, if I want of a better word, this is her cosplaying era where she went to the Petit Trionon and pretended to be a milkmaid.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a very odd period. I think like we were saying on and off camera, she was, she was a bird. She was trapped. She was trying to get out of this, the, the rigidity of court politics. The grand couvert, the nightly dinner where she'd have to eat in front of people. She hated it.

• 46:37Kate Lister?

  It'd be so weird, wouldn't it?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Weird. We have, we have records from her ladies in waiting that she hated it and she would have musicians play. So she didn't have to talk to people and she'd just get it done. And then she made it only once a week. So we know she hated the court politics. Um, so later in her life, Louis had her built le Petit Trionon as her sort of escape from it all. And there's a model village called, uh, Hameau de Lorraine there, which is the queen's village. And it's essentially the set of beauty and the beast. It's like a fake like bonjour little farm town that's all clean and perfect. And she would go to Petit Trionon with the Duchess de Polignac, who everyone said was bad influence, played by Rose Byrne in the movie Icon. Um, and the Princess de Lumbert and her

• 47:20Speaker 01

  other friends. And she'd have afternoon tea and they would milk goats that had been cleaned, perfumed and be ribbed.

• 47:26Kate Lister?

  And there were people hired there to be peasants.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Wandering, it was Disneyland. It was Disneyland for her. And weird, I think in her head, she would have been thinking like, the peasants aren't having that bad a time out there. Like this is what it's like. She was so separated from the truth in this gilded cage that was Versailles, I think.

• 47:46Kate Lister?

  And the fashion for that particular moment, is that, would that, was that very different from what you're wearing now?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Funny enough, this gown that I'm wearing is based on the gown in the portrait that replaced the infamous Chemie Zellerain gown, which we'll, we'll talk about. Um, so this gown actually would have been something that her lady friends certainly might have worn to Petit Trionon with her. It's quite simple. I have worn this to picnics. In, in terms of their gowns, it's quite simple. It's pastoral. It's this sort of shepherdess fantasy that they played with.

• 48:18Kate Lister?

  Tell me about the Chemie Zellerain scandal.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Was a biggie. So Marie was damned if she did, damned if she didn't. It was the Princess Diana syndrome, I think, in that she was wearing these silk gowns to, uh, patronize the silk weavers to, to get their money. Lyon in France was very famous for its silk output. Um, so she would wear the court silks and have the court portraits painted, but then it was, you are madam deficit. You are spending the country into ruin. When actually I think you'll find it was the men paying for a war with America, you know, supporting America's independence.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  So the silks, then she sort of, as she moved into Petit Trionon and she was doing more physically, as well as the classicism, the neoclassicism rising, all of it sort of happening at once. She started, she debuted this gown known as the chemise à la reine, which is, it's a sort of bib-fronted gown that you still wear over your stays. You don't wear it without anything. But the style of it is similar to the shift. It's a very gathered, frilly, obnoxious shift. It looks kind of like what babies are christened in. It's kind of that kind of thing.

• 49:31Kate Lister?

  You can see the portrait today. You can, you can Google it if you want to. And to our modern eyes, it still looks pretty damn fancy, but it didn't look fancy to them, did it?

• 49:40Speaker 01

  No, I think it represented a few things. It represented, one, she was no longer supporting the silk guilds because the fabric was muslin, very fine linen or cotton, which was imported.

• 49:50Kate Lister?

  Strike one.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Strike one. Strike two was, it was essentially to their eye underwear.

• 49:56Kate Lister?

  It was like a portrait of, of King Charles in a muumuu or in his boxers.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like if King Charles had his portrait painted in a mankini, like it was so scandal.

• 50:06Kate Lister?

  What the hell is going on here?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  It was painted in the 1780s and displayed in a salon in Paris. And it was so controversial that they had to take it down basically immediately. And the court painter repainted it into my favourite painting of Marie Antoinette ever that was at the V and A. The portrait of her holding the rose in the blue, basically this gown in blue with the blue and white striped bow at her neck. And this hair essentially, where she looks, I think, absolutely beautiful.

• 50:33Kate Lister?

  But that chemise à la reine managed to piss everyone off. It pissed, like, it's not often that that happens. Everybody is mad across the board. Like, the, the upper classes were furious because you're a queen. Why the hell are you running around in your scanties?

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:47Kate Lister?

  The lower classes, who you might have thought like a bit of solidarity, like, you know, she's not looking like a queen.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Not looking regal enough. Yeah.

• 50:54Kate Lister?

  But they were shocked as well, effectively, because she's, well, she's cosplaying, being a peasant. And actually, there are peasants starving. So everybody hated that portrait of her.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  And it's a real shame because I think it's, of all the portraits we have of sort of nobility of the time, it's the one that feels the most real. It feels like she could be a girl we know, you know? It's almost cottage core in the styling of it with the, the shepherdess hat and the gown. And her hair is looser and she's got the flower. It's just a lot more real to me.

• 51:22Kate Lister?

  It's what I like about it as well, is it is much more simple, but it's actually her. You could tell that she wanted that portrait doing in this style. And she's broke with all of the conventions and everything that was expected of her. And she really tried to do something radically different.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think it was her, like Lizzie McGuire coming out moment. I think it was, I think it was her, like.

• 51:44Kate Lister?

  The Miley Cyrus moment.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Yes. This is her, who I am, like, who I am beyond the silks and looking like a Faberge earbud, essentially from the rest of her portraits. And also by that point in her life, she'd lost one of her children. And I think, I think being in a place that's essentially high school with everyone sniping and backbiting and who can wear the newest clothes and who can, and taking gloves from the highest rank in the room. I just think she wanted out, man.

• 52:14Kate Lister?

  I think she did.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:16Kate Lister?

  So how long did it take you to make this dress? And how long do you think it would have taken for presumably a group of people to make a dress for Marie Antoinette?

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Well, this gown took me, the gown, not the skirt. The skirt took about a day. So each petticoat was a day. The, the stays were about three days. The actual gown was about five to seven days of like 12 hours, just smashing it out. There's no embroidery on this gown, so that took off a lot of time. In the period, firstly, I used a sewing machine for the big seams, but all of my hems are done by hand.

• 52:50Kate Lister?

  Are they?

• 52:50Speaker 01

  All of my linings, yep, there's no machining. It's done completely period.

• 52:55Kate Lister?

  Check you out.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  All of this is applied in the period way. All the tapes are put in by hand. The lining is put in by hand. Yeah, I'm a bit of a stickler, which is funny looking like this. But yeah, so it would have taken a group of people way longer because there is no sewing machine. That didn't get invented until the 19th century. So everything was, was multiple seamstresses. I think making up a basic gown with a team of five women probably could have been a week. Like if it was multiple seamstresses doing it and they worked crazy long hours by one candle with the light magnified by like a jug of water to like disco ball the lights they could see. If it was embroidered, it would take way longer. And then lace is handmade.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  This lace is an antique piece of bobbin lace. So this is about 150 years old, which people will probably be funny with me at, but I would rather it be seeing the world than in a box rotting or on a shelf. So lace was a huge industry. Pointe de Alonson was a French lace that was known for how fine and delicate it was. And one metre of that could be genuinely thousands of leave, hundreds and hundreds of pounds in today's money. So adding lace, adding embroidery, which was priced per metre and by the quality. I mean, a team of embroiders could be six people. There was one who drew the pattern, one who marked the pattern, one who started embroidering, one who did the beading. It was a whole process of multiple people.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  So a big court gown could take months or years.

• 54:28Kate Lister?

  So I'm going to imagine that we don't know the names of any of the people that were making the dresses, but we do know the name of Marie Antoinette's stylist, for want of a better word.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yes, we do. So Madame Rose Bertin. Her first name was actually Marie, but she went by Rose, I think. Because everyone was low key called Marie in the 18th century. I mean, all of Marie Antoinette's sisters were called Marie as well, because it was a.

• 54:50Kate Lister?

  Imagine having so many kids, you called several of them Marie. It's ridiculous. Bloody hell.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Kids, not all girls, but all of them were called Marie as it was a Catholic good luck thing because of the saint Maria. But she went by Antoine at home. But Rose Bertin was a stylist, later known as Marie's Minister of Fashion. And basically she was a girl with a dream. She started in a sort of backwater that was known for producing textiles and just rose in the ranks. She, she opened up her own shop on Rue de Saint-Honoré. And women of note and quality would go to her for her eye for style. Now, there's misconceptions going around that she was a seamstress. She wasn't.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  She was essentially a fashion designer where she would orchestrate seamstresses and lace and put it all together, pin it all on. She wasn't a seamstress. She probably did sewing, but she didn't construct the gowns. She was a stylist in the sort of the modern word. So she, at 16, went to Paris and started doing very well. And then I believe her original patron was Princess de Lombal, who was Marie's closest friend or one of her closest friends. And they got introduced, I believe in 1774 and just hit it off. And she became part of her glam squad, essentially.

• 56:07Kate Lister?

  That's a hell of a rise, isn't it? That, from nowhere to dress in Marie Antoinette.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  But the same happened with her hairstylist, Monsieur Leonardo T. He was a nobody from a backwater who just got to Paris, became known in the same way that like Lady Gaga will choose designers from sort of schools in New York or London. Sometimes it, it does happen.

• 56:29Kate Lister?

  Do we have more to add to this magnificent ensemble?

• 56:31Speaker 01

  So the last bit is essentially accessories, but some of them, the caps and the fish shoe is kind of ubiquitous for all classes. So we'll show you those too.

• 56:39Kate Lister?

  Well, let's do it.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 56:45Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Casta after this short break.

• 56:54Kate Lister?

  Hello, betwixters. I am jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right. It took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that.

• 57:23Kate Lister?

  Right, let's get on with it.

• 57:34Kate Lister?

  All right, let's talk bling. What have you got?

• 57:37Speaker 01

  So I am very fastidious about my jewels. I don't like anything that looks period incorrect. I've got some pearl bracelets on. Pearls were ubiquitous throughout history for wealthy people. I have some rings. I have a little gold posy ring and a gold ring with a pearl. At my neck, I have a collet necklace, which popularised in the 21st century by Anna Wintour. It's a necklace made of rectangular gems that goes all the way around the neck. This one is made of like a green chrysoprase-like crystal, which surrounded by diamonds, which would have been obviously crazy money at the time.

• 58:13Kate Lister?

  God, yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  And then my ears, I have earrings that match. But my favourite piece of 18th century jewellery that I'd like to show you is a châtelaine. It is a piece that is also used for substance as well as style.

• 58:24Kate Lister?

  What is a châtelaine?

• 58:26Speaker 01

  They are an obnoxious piece of jewellery. The rattling, you can probably hear in all the rattles. So a châtelaine is essentially a woman's Swiss Army knife. So you hook it onto your skirt.

• 58:41Kate Lister?

  It looks like a bunch of keys almost, but really fancy.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in the 18th century, men had pocket watches, which obviously were very vital in keeping time. So you'd have, men would have two, one on each side, but they would just be one thing. You'd have your pocket watch on one and your little key that wound up your pocket watch, because it's clockwork on the other side, or sometimes a wax seal to seal letters.

• 59:03Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Women tended to have one and they would have sometimes a watch like this one on the middle to keep time. They would have the little wax stamp for the letter. I've got one of mine. They'd have the key to wind up.

• 59:17Kate Lister?

  That's so cool.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  This one also has a little locket with a sweetheart portrait inside. And this is just a big jewelled piece. But châtelaines in the 18th century were sort of quite fanciful. But then, as we get into the Victorian period, we see them on housekeepers' belts and they have house keys, they have that kind of thing on. And we also see a sewing châtelaine, which was sometimes a separate one from that one, which would have a ball, pin cushion attached, and like a needle case and an unpicker and a magnifying glass, or even like little pencils and silver holders.

• 59:50Kate Lister?

  Now, I've seen some of Marie Antoinette's jewellery and that girl loved some bling.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:54Kate Lister?

  Didn't she? She loved a diamond. She loved some pearls.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, she did. Of all the things attributed to Marie, the jewellery is the thing that we have the most abundance of, because of course it's so valuable and it stays in collections, whereas fabric degrades and stuff. And of course, she was involved in a very famous scandal surrounding the purchase of a diamond necklace, which she had nothing to do with.

• 1:00:15Kate Lister?

  Nothing to do with.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  And was attributed to her. And it was a whole thing that smeared her image.

• 1:00:21Kate Lister?

  It was a con artist trying to get a cardinal to, trying to convince the cardinal that Marie Antoinette wanted him to buy a diamond necklace for her. And it was nothing to do with her at all.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  No. And it wasn't even made for her. It was made for Madame de Barry, the sort of courtesan mistress of the previous king. And it was, the replica of it is nuts. You've seen it. Insane. And also, not even nice. It's just like actually ugly. But it basically looks, for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's kind of like two big swags of French cut diamonds with like enamel blue bows with diamond tassels. It's huge. It would hang almost to like the waist, from the neck to the waist. It was huge.

• 1:01:01Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely huge. And I think it was something like 80,000 carats of diamonds in it. It was crazy.

• 1:01:06Kate Lister?

  It says I could even afford one of those diamonds. But yes, just rather cheap and tacky, if you ask me. Right. Talk to me about the final finishing flourishes that we've got. We've got our jewels, we've got the skirts, we've got the petticoats. How many layers are we now? Four?

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  I've lost track. I have, dyscalculia. So yeah, we need to get the next bits on. The last bits for a woman would be a cap, a fishu, a hat and a parasol. And then we're sort of done, other than the little bag. But I didn't bring one, so.

• 1:01:34Kate Lister?

  Okay, well, let's do it. Let's finish this off.

• 1:01:42Kate Lister?

  So what am I holding and what have you put on your head?

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  So millinery is my favourite topic to discuss, basically.

• 1:01:51Kate Lister?

  It really does set the whole outfit off, that hat. It's incredible.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's quite a feat of engineering to keep it on. So what we've got in our hands are a cap. So caps were basically a modesty covering throughout time. And in the 18th century, it was no different. This sort of hedgehog hair wasn't often worn with a cap. It was worn with a sort of like turban-y, almost ribbon wrap. But if you were getting ready, if your hair was undressed, you would wear something like this at your makeup station.

• 1:02:20Kate Lister?

  Right, okay.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  You'd also wear stuff like this in the bath. And Marie was walked up to the scaffold wearing something very similar to this one that I'm holding.

• 1:02:28Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  The shape is called like a dormouse cap or a sleep cap. People would also sleep in these.

• 1:02:34Kate Lister?

  It's like a bonnet for curly hair. I slept in one of them. Tell me about your hat.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  And then my hat is what is known as a bejart hat. It is a low crowned shepherdess style hat that sort of came in with Madame de Pompadour, but it didn't reach the height until sort of 1770. They're a low crown, so they don't sink onto your hair. They stay quite high. And you'd wear it fashionably tipped slightly forward to shield your eyes. This one is straw, but there were also ones covered in silk or sometimes you see ones made of, it's rarer, but you see ones made of concentric circles of wire covered in lace. So you see like the skeleton of the wire underneath. But they're kind of ugly. I don't really care for those. And it just completes her like petite trianon shepherdess,

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  I'm a peasant fantasy with the flowers and the feathers. And this one has fruit on it, has like little pears on it.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's quite a thing.

• 1:03:28Kate Lister?

  It is, isn't it? And what's this item here that I am holding up that to me looks like, how do I describe that? A giant triangle of very beautiful laced fabric. What would we do with this?

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  So this is called a fishu and it is essentially a garment that you'd wear basically to protect your neck from the sun and also to protect your gown from sweat. It was multiple use.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  The gown I'm wearing has a lace tucker, so I wouldn't wear it on top. But in portraits, you will see them tucked under the gown, around the neck.

• 1:03:59Kate Lister?

  I've seen them doing that. It's kind of like, like that. And then the dress goes over the top. Yes, I've seen them doing that. Okay.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  You see them in Victorian times as well. They're sort of ubiquitous really throughout time.

• 1:04:12Kate Lister?

  It's giving pilgrim as well, isn't it?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yes, very 17th century. Yeah, 100%.

• 1:04:16Kate Lister?

  Yes. So is this you ready then for a night out at Versailles?

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  This is me ready for probably like a day at the petit trianon, like an afternoon tea, delio, an evening where hats weren't really an evening thing.

• 1:04:29Kate Lister?

  She would have changed multiple times at the day, wouldn't she?

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So evening wear would have been like a more elaborate gown generally, and the hair would be decorated itself rather than a hat. But the only thing I really need now is I need my little lace parasol just to keep the French sun off of my skin.

• 1:04:49Kate Lister?

  Of course.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  They didn't have sun cream, of course. So yeah, anything you could do to protect yourself from the sun, you would.

• 1:04:57Kate Lister?

  So would you be comfortable wearing this all day? Do you think they were comfortable? I mean, you're the queen. You can't, you can't give it away that you're uncomfortable at all. But just on a human level, what's it like to wear an outfit like this?

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  As a human, firstly, I don't have natural breasts. So I think there's a level of discomfort that would be there slightly more for women who are like being sort of pushed up and compressed. For me, I feel comfortable, the shoulders, gowns in this period, the shoulders, the sleeves are put in in a different way than they are now. So they're set slightly back, so they push your shoulders back. So you do at the end of the day, end up with slight tension on your shoulders and the back of your neck. If you have a big wig on, even more so. I think people would have been very hot. I think they would have been uncomfortable. But the people who were wearing this class of gown were not doing much.

• 1:05:45Kate Lister?

  No, that's true. Casta, you have been phenomenal to talk to you. Thank you so much. If people know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  You can find me on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram as Casta Hex, C A S T A underscore H E X. Yeah, I'm on there. I accept commissions for different bits and bobs and I do little historical tidbits, wearing various periods of dress and talking about everything from witchcraft to, you know, embroidery. So a bit of everything.

• 1:06:16Kate Lister?

  Well, thank you so much for coming by. You've been an absolute bore.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Thank you. I've had an absolutely wonderful time. It's been amazing. Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:06:23Kate Lister?

  A pleasure.

• 1:06:26Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Casta for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you want us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can now email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Natasha Hughes and produced by Sophie G, McKenna Fernandez and Georgie Turner. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt and Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.