Rose Bertin - Couturière de Marie-Antoinette

How did a young person, an unknown and without relation, become the ear, the eye and the advisor of the queen of France Marie-Antoinette and, in her trail, of all the feminine aristocracy of her time' The talent and the intelligence allied to an extraordinary creativity explain this spectacular social ascent that Michelle Sapori tells us with talent. So surprising is in the country of the elegance and the fashion, no real biography had been dedicated to 'Miss Bertin', as well as called her contemporaries. By undermining the bases of the Ancien Régime clothing, by substituting for pinafores a light, fluid and comfortable fashion which will triumph completely under the Empire, by developing accessories' Hats and gloves' Rose Bertin invented a new wardrobe.

With thirty salaried workers, of multiple suppliers and subcontractors, her store 'Grand Mogol' situated near the Palais-Royal, in the heart of Paris, received a prestigious and demanding clientele, with which Rose Bertin maintained ambiguous connections, oscillating between submission and arrogance.

Appointed to the head of the quite new feminine corporation of the traders of fashions, the 'enjoliveuse', qualified also as ' female Minister ' or as Marie - Antoinette's 'evil genius ', has to emigrate in the Revolution. This outstanding woman, with a sturdy character, comes back from Thermidor to try to save what can still be her. In her death in 1813, Rose Bertin already entered the legend, in the lively and contrasted colors.

Michelle Sapori is a historian, author of a thesis and numerous articles on Rose Bertin Binding paperback

Author : Michelle Sapori
Co-edition : Etablissement public du château, du musée et du domaine national de Versailles / Librairie Académique Perrin
October 2010
178 pages
language : French
ISBN : 9782262032487

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