Sarah Grant – författare

'Marie Antoinette' - the very name conjures up a vibrant pastel-coloured world of excess, filled with satin shoes, rustling silks, gravity-defying hairstyles, decadent macarons, delicious intrigue and then, of course, bloody Revolution.This ground-breaking volume first reconstructs the life and style of the captivating yet tragic Marie Antoinette - married at 14, queen at 18 and guillotined at 37 - from the intimate apartments she lived in to the scent she wore, the trends she led and the complexities of French court life. The authors draw on contemporary accounts, interiors, letters, portraits and the tantalisingly few personal possessions that remain, her shoes and fans, and fragments of cloth from her dresses. But Marie Antoinette has remained influential long beyond her death in 1793. The book uncovers how the ill-fated Queen of France has provided a constant source of inspiration to the worlds of design, fashion, film and decorative arts - from nineteenth-century fancy dress balls, to Art Deco illustration, to the couture of John Galliano for Dior and the sumptuous movie by Sofia Coppola. It considers afresh the legacy of a complex and mis-understood figure whose style, youth and notoriety have contributed to her timeless appeal.

This comprehensive book brings to light the portraits, private collections and public patronage of the princesse de Lamballe, a pivotal member of Marie-Antoinette’s inner circle. Drawing extensively on unpublished archival sources, Sarah Grant examines the princess’s many portrait commissions and the rich character of her private collections, which included works by some of the period’s leading artists and artisans. The book sheds new light on the agency, sorority and taste of Marie-Antoinette and her friends, a group of female patrons and model of courtly collecting that would be extinguished by the coming revolution.

This comprehensive book brings to light the portraits, private collections and public patronage of the princesse de Lamballe, a pivotal member of Marie-Antoinette’s inner circle. Drawing extensively on unpublished archival sources, Sarah Grant examines the princess’s many portrait commissions and the rich character of her private collections, which included works by some of the period’s leading artists and artisans. The book sheds new light on the agency, sorority and taste of Marie-Antoinette and her friends, a group of female patrons and model of courtly collecting that would be extinguished by the coming revolution.

From the sky-high coiffures of Georgian Britain to the languid silhouette of 1920s 'flappers', Style and Satire tells the story of European fashion and its most fantastical trends from two interrelated perspectives - the lavish, celebratory fashion plate, and the gloriously irreverent satirical print.Beautifully printed, hand-coloured fashion plates depicting the latest styles and fabrics first appeared in Britain and France in the late 1700s - nestled in luxurious periodicals and available for sale as desirable objects in their own right. At the same time (and often by the same artists), satirical prints gloried in the absurdities of fashion, presenting an alternative, often grotesque, vision of the fashionable ideal. Presented here as a joint history for the first time, the two genres describe an emerging, vibrant fashion culture. They themselves also evolved as art forms, first through the pages of the mass-produced Victorian periodical, and then as vibrant, stencilled images in the luxurious publications of the 1920s and '30s.Lavishly illustrated and rigorously researched, Style and Satire presents a fresh and original history of fashion - a vital and witty addition to every fashion victim's library.