Marie Antoinette Style

Preview: written before the show opened

Reviewing this show at the V&A in London in 2025, Hermione Eyre of the Spectator called it "a tour de force" and counted 34 objects the queen had owned, down to her pink silk slippers. Anne Higonnet, in the London Review of Books, found that "the exhibition delights" but said the V&A "seems intent on shutting off consequences": what the gowns and diamonds cost a country in crisis.

Seoul's version has about 190 objects: her own belongings, plus later fashion, decorative art and installations made under her influence. You start with how she styled herself through clothes, rooms and taste, then meet her reputations side by side: luxury and excess, admiration, victim of the Revolution, fashion icon. Whether Seoul dwells longer on the bill is the open question.

It runs from 18 December to 31 March in Special Exhibition Gallery 2. Special exhibitions are the only part of the museum that charges, and no price is listed yet. The museum stays open until 9pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays.