About the Project:
I was commissioned to make a series of wigs for the “Marie Antoinette Style” exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum which opened on 20th September 2025 and runs until 22nd March 2026. The wigs featured on this page were six of twenty-four I made and were coined the “Towering Elaborate Wigs”.
The wigs for this group were intended to have plenty of height with curls at the back and curly ponytails that could be shaped to drape over the shoulders of the mannequins. There were two colours for these six wigs: three in ivory colour crinoline and three in black crinoline. They were all constructed onto frames made of Rigilene boning that had been covered in dress netting fabric.
THE BLACK WIGS
Three black wigs were made to go into the “Hall of Mirrors” section of the exhibition. The Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces) is a grand Baroque gallery inside the Palace of Versailles, near Paris, France, and is one of its most emblematic rooms. Commissioned by King Louis XIV, it was created to showcase the political, economic, and artistic triumphs of France and to impress foreign dignitaries with its grandeur. Marie Antoinette used the opulent Hall of Mirrors for court ceremonies and was a guest of honour at the lavish ball held there for her wedding.
The start of the exhibition has historical objects in showcases. They are in exhibition cases in order to maintain stable levels of humidity, temperature, and air quality, safeguarding these delicate objects from fluctuating environmental conditions. The black wigs were however very difficult to photograph behind the glass of the showcases with all the reflections!
Above left:
Robe à la française
Unknown maker
About 1760-70, updated 1770-80Above right:
Robe à la française
Unknown maker
1775-80, altered 1870-1910
THE IVORY WIGS
The three ivory wigs were worked on alongside the three black versions and were made to fit on abstract fibreglass mannequin heads (although they are photographed below on papier-mâché heads in my studio).
The three ivory wigs (two of which are displayed below), are featured in the final section of the exhibition which displays modern and contemporary reinterpretations of her style through fashion, film, and art. One of the wigs has a “ship hat” object attached to the top (made of resin and wire), which was added onto the wig by the Textiles Conservation department at the museum.
Top left image:
Costume worn by the actress Kirstin Dunst in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006)
Gown from the ‘Let the eat cake’ sceneTop right image:
Costume worn by the actress Kirstin Dunst in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006)
Gown and hat from the ‘Garden’ scene
About:
- The wigs were made to fit onto papier-mâché and abstract fibreglass mannequin heads.
- The wigs were constructed onto frames made of Rigiline boning, with the black versions covered in black bias-binding.
- Dress netting was used to create a base layer upon which to attach the crinoline.
- They were made from black and ivory crinoline, built up in many layers and shaped using stitches to match the hairstyle in reference images I was given of Marie Antoinette.
- The curly ponytails were made by covering a wire ringlet with dress netting and an upper layer of crinoline.
More details about the project as a whole and how I made these wigs can soon be read in a blog post on my website here.
The exhibition is currently touring and will next be on display at The Yokohama Museum of Art in Japan from August 1st – November 23rd 2026.