Stepping into fantasy: Manolo Blahnik’s Marie Antoinette shoes displayed at the V&A exhibition
From towering hairdos to extravagant banquets, and even an oft misattributed quote involving cake, Marie Antoinette may have only lived a mere 37 years three centuries ago, but the last French queen’s influence—and our fascination with her—endures. So much so that this month, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is set to open Marie Antoinette Style, the UK’s first-ever exhibition dedicated to the late Austrian archduchess-turned-queen, featuring 250 objects including those featured in the cult 2006 Sofia Coppola film starring Kirsten Dunst. There will be glittering jewels, pristine portraits and, of course, irresistible shoes.
“[Marie Antoinette] used style not merely as decoration but both as expression and escape,” says legendary shoemaker Manolo Blahnik, who designed the now-iconic stilettos for Dunst’s on-screen queen in Coppola’s film. “The way she dressed, the way she presented herself…it was performance, theatre, a language all its own. She often changed shoes several times a day, even if no one was going to see them. That sense of fashion as storytelling has never left me. To me, she is perhaps fashion’s first true icon.”
Also read: Father figure fashion: how Oscar Isaac took summer back from Pedro Pascal
The film won an Oscar for Best Costume Design that year, thanks to costume designer Milena Canonero and Blahnik, who brought Coppola’s candy box vision to life. Unlike most film productions that would source vintage clothing and accessories for authenticity, Coppola insisted that everything should be custom-made. A scene depicting Dunst ooh-ing and ahh-ing over decadent fabrics while sipping champagne and slipping into Manolos while indulging in cake, all to the Bow Wow Wow song “I Want Candy” in the background, sums up the film’s aesthetic, which was reportedly created to resemble a box of macarons. Blahnik’s starting point while researching for the film? The Victoria and Albert Museum. For his shoes to return for the exhibition, he says, marks a real full-circle moment.
Manolo Blahnik was fascinated by the duality of the shoes of the 18th century—delicate, yet masterfully structured
Films and sets have captured Manolo Blahnik’s imagination since childhood
What fascinated me [about the shoes of the 18th century] was their duality: so delicate, yet so rigorously structured—they were tiny masterpieces of proportion and craft,” he says. “But shoes of that era had a very particular silhouette, elegant but not always practical.” Rather than insisting on total historical accuracy, Coppola gave the designer carte blanche to interpret the styles for the screen. “I handmade many of the styles myself. I discovered an extraordinary silk production house in Paris, which had the perfect texture….it cost a small fortune but was irresistible. I spent hours fringing it, looping it through antique buckles, experimenting until the shoes felt alive,” Blahnik says of one of his designs whose silhouette drew from the historical court shoe, but was given an elongated heel and tongue, providing a contemporary twist. “To me, they were not costumes but living pieces of fantasy; exactly what I imagine Marie Antoinette would choose to wear if she were alive today.”
Films and sets have captured Blahnik’s imagination since childhood. In fact, had he not “accidentally” become a shoe designer, he’d have continued to be a set designer, where his career first began. The story goes, a young Manolo Blahnik, born in the Canary Islands to a Spanish mother and a Czech father, grew up making shoes out of the aluminium candy wrappers for the little lizards that visited the banana plantation he called home. After studying art and literature in Paris, Blahnik was designing sets for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream when the inimitable Diana Vreeland (then-director of the Met Costume Institute) discovered his sketches of the costumes. Hippolyta’s high-heeled sandal adorned with ivy and cherries caught her eye, and the rest, as they say, was history. “In a way, I am still a set designer, only now the stage is the feet,” Blahnik says.
In case you missed it: From Chappell Roan’s rainbow beats to Jenna Ortega’s gothic glam: meet the celebrity makeup artists behind your favourite looks
For the last 50 years, the prolific designer’s shoes have waltzed their way onto the feet of every member of the glitterati, from music legends like Bianca Jagger to the fashion priestess herself Anna Wintour, who all fell in love with his whimsical, miniature works of art. Eschewing trends, Blahnik is continually drawn to films for inspiration, The Leopard (1963) by Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti being his all-time favourite. With lavish sets and frothy costumes, the film, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year, is a feast for the eyes.
Manolo Blahnik shoes have waltzed their way onto the feet of every member of the glitterati
“Every frame of his work feels like the vision of an artist utterly consumed by beauty. I was transfixed by his images…the people, the places, even the suggestion of scent and taste,” says Blahnik. “Costume designers Piero Tosi and Umberto Tirelli created looks where shoes were not the star, but always present. The glimpse of a toe peeking from beneath vast gowns, or the subtle outline of a perfectly shaped slipper, felt more powerful. It allowed the imagination to complete the picture. That, to me, is the true magic of costume design: the way a shoe can quietly ground a character’s entire presence.”
Blahnik aimed to capture the same spirit for his painstaking creations for Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Details like tiny hand-stitched rosettes, little grosgrain bindings and buckles he scavenged in Paris are sprinkled throughout each shoe. Each of the leather linings was chosen for its colour. “I thought, if the queen is going to take her shoes off, it should still be beautiful inside,” he says. Though glimpsed only for a fraction of a frame, they were integral nevertheless to the fantasy.
These details are what Blahnik is most eager for visitors to uncover at the V&A exhibition, to have the opportunity to examine them up close, and marvel at the intricacies of the queen’s original slippers from the 1700s next to Blahnik’s Antoinetta shoe, his favourite design for the movie.
“What excites me most about this exhibition is its intimacy, “he says. “Of course, there are the spectacular gowns, dresses and jewels, but what moves me most are the smaller, more personal details—her worn silk slippers, the pastel ribbons from her hair, even her final handwritten note. Together, they create a portrait not just of a queen, but of a woman whose spirit continues to inspire beauty and fantasy across centuries.”
The Marie Antoinette Style exhibition will run from September 20, 2025, to March 22, 2026, at the V&A South Kensington in London.
NOW READ
Celebrating sustainability: highlights from the 15th Redress Design Award at Centrestage
The Y2K style of Lola Tung: 5 looks that are straight out of the millennial playbook