In a wooden mock castle - hastily erected at this "neutral locale" between the kingdoms of Hapsburg and France - Princess Maria was stripped naked and then re-dressed in full view of half the French court. By handing over her own clothes, she was stripped of her nationality. Once dressed in French clothes from her underwear to her shoe buckles, caked in French make-up and decorated with French jewels, she was recast as Marie Antoinette.
She was 14 when she arrived at the Chateau de Versailles, built a century earlier by Louis XIV to display his absolute power. There, every step she took, from the moment she awoke until she went to bed, was observed by hundreds of courtiers. In this world of show, Marie Antoinette quickly realised that she could use fashion as both a political statement and an expression of personal freedom. Her choice of attire may have seemed merely frivolous, but in the end, argues Caroline Weber in Queen of Fashion, it determined her fate.