Nothing could be more French than to allow current affairs to influence fashion (just look at the hairstyles concocted by Rose Bertin for Marie Antoinette and her coterie – battleships, babies being born and balloons taking off are just a few examples) and the outrageously dressed Merveilleuses are the finest example of this.
Les Merveilleuses (‘The Marvellous Ones’) made their first appearance in 1794 and influenced by the victims of the guillotine, they cultivated a highly modish and edgily morbid style that bordered on the gothic. The leaders of the Merveilleuses were the extremely stylish Theresa Tallien and Rose de Beauharnais, both of whom had been imprisoned during the Terror and had barely escaped with their lives.
One of the favoured accessories of the fashionable Merveilleuse was a thin red ribbon or choker of rubies, designed to mimic droplets of blood around a severed neck.
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Robe à l’anglaise, 1784-1787 (France)
Dress, circa 1795 (Italy, Napoli)
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