Enchantée, Monsieur Perrault: French Court Fashion in Fairy Tale Illustration

Written By Norman Rea Gallery

Words by Madeleine McClean


‘The gift I shall give you’, continued the Fairy, ‘is that at every word

you speak either a flower or a jewel will fall from your lips’

excerpt from ‘The Fairy’, by Charles Perrault


Such is the sumptuous and surreal imagery of Charles Perrault’s ‘Contes des Fées’, penned towards the end of the 17th Century in France. Whilst such an enchanting image allegorises the tale’s message about the value of loving speech, it also points to the sparkling exuberance of courtly fashions of the time of the Sun King, whose extensive patronage of the arts oversaw the construction of Versailles. One can imagine the grand Hall of Mirrors in its heyday, hosting swirls of gowned ladies and gallant chevaliers, all dripping embroidered flowers and jewels; indeed, The Marquis of Dangeau noted in 1702 that “The Duchesse de Bourgogne lay down on her bed exhausted by the weight of the gown she wore yesterday at the comedié because it had been overloaded with too many jewels”. Louis himself, who ‘believed luxury was necessary not only to the economic health of the country, but to the prestige and very survival of the monarchy’, would have outdone even such opulence. Displays of grandeur ensured that others would buy into his perception of himself as a divinely instated ruler, head of an absolute monarchy. To this effect, his edict of 1668 instated fashion rules designed to send the nobility into debt, in turn preserving his financial authority.

King Louis XIV of France in the costume of the Sun King in the ballet La Nuit, 1653

Strutting in his finery amongst these glittering halls you might expect to encounter Charles Perrault, busy with his designs for the Labyrinth Grove of the Versailles gardens, where you would have once encountered a series of thirty-nine fountains representing each an animal from Aesop’s fables. He had a place at court as secretary to Colbert (finance minister to Louis), before being dismissed concerning literary quarrels with Racine, Boileau and Louvois in 1683 - it was only after this that he turned to writing fairy tales out of love for his children. Such works were soon to be in vogue in French literary salons. His approach to fairy-story has what Tolkien would describe as the ‘frivolous, half-mocking smile of the courtly, sophisticated Conte’, as opposed to the self-serious, utterly immersive nature of what Tolkien considered as ‘true’ Faerie. Perrault’s famous tales (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard to name but a few) are self-aware but fantastical nonetheless, and who better to illustrate this fantasy than Edmund Dulac, a 20th Century French-British artist clearly ‘au fées’ with courtly aesthetics.

‘Cinderella at the ball meeting the Prince’, Edmund Dulac (1882-1953)

Our eye is perhaps first drawn to the most troubling element; namely the likely visual reference to Largilliere’s ‘Portrait of a Woman and an Enslaved Servant’, painted during Perrault’s time in 1696 as part of a tradition of staging hierarchical relationships between a sitter and supporting figures. Whilst slavery was prohibited at this time, certain colonial families excepted the rule, and the concerned expression on this servant child’s face concerns the viewer in turn. Putting this aside, the image exudes the elegance and sartorial refinement of courtly reception. The man seems to be wearing a ‘justaucorps à brevet’, a silk jacket permitted to be worn by only 50-60 of the King’s closest courtiers. Furthermore, his red-soled high heels were deemed to show off his high status and masculinity, echoing the 2-5” heels worn by the Sun King in Rigaud’s famous portrait of him.

‘Recueil des modes de la cour de France, ‘Le Cavalier bien mis’’, by Nicolas Bonnart, 1684

Ooh la la! Louis turning heads with his red-soled shoes, as much a marker of elegance then as now.

Detail from ‘Portrait of Louis XIV’ by Rigaud, 1701

Cinderella’s dress is a little harder to pin; somewhat reminiscent of a Mantua, it also bears elements of a grand habit de cour or robe de cour. Whilst the former style originated in France in the 1670s, it was not to Louis’ taste and he soon banned it from court, deeming it too informal (perhaps surprising to a modern audience considering it’s relative majesty, but it had after all started out as a sort of ‘dressed down’ option akin to a man’s banyan). Lascivious Louis preferred to make way for his penchant for a bit of decolletage; thus the grand habit accentuated bared shoulders and featured a boned bodice that was laced at the back. Whilst this Cinderella seems to sport the more modest mantua style that covered the shoulders, encouraged by Louis’ moralising mistress Mme Maintenon (a curt description; read about this fascinating woman herehttps://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/great-characters/madame-maintenon), the tight bodice does not recall the waistline of the looser Mantua style.

Attempts at identifying this dress would seem to make more sense if we look beyond Perrault’s time to a later period; onwards to the 18th Century and its court fashions.

Left: Robe à la Française vs Right: Robe à L’Anglaise

Both of these styles were popularised in the 18th Century and they can be differentiated largely by the ‘Watteau pleats’ apparent only on the back of the Robe a la Francaise. The absence of this pleating on Cinderella’s dress would therefore suggest ‘the English style’. However, there is another element that differentiates it from the historical examples, as the bunched fabric at her hips points to the the use of retroussée. This was when the outer skirt was pulled up by a cord or pulled through pocket slits. Not to be confused with the ‘Robe à la Polonaise’…


…which also lifted the skirts, but crucially lacked a waist seam as the skirts and bodice were all sewn together, allowing the ensemble to be fastened neatly at the front (as opposed to the bodice and skirts fastening separately). Dulac’s depiction of the Fairy Godmother (below) makes much of these swags of fabric, though it is hard to tell from an illustration whether the bodice is in fact attached or not.

Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother, by Edmund Dulac, 1910

Still from ‘Marie Antoinette’ directed by Sophia Coppola, 2006

It reminded me of one of the many pastel-blue dresses worn by Kirsten Dunst in her role as Marie Antoinette; though as is the case in the illustration, our distance from the physical garment here makes it almost impossible to differentiate between a ‘robe a l’anglaise retroussee’ and a ‘polonaise’. Canonero, the fashion designer for Coppola’s film, said she wanted to ‘squeeze the essence of the period’, in order to make the outfits ‘believable, but more stylised’. Which may explain the refreshingly modern lack of extensive embellishments and accessories in this movie-still. Arguably, Dulac has done the same, in his own way; making full use of artistic license, he blends fashions from Perrault’s own time with later modes to create an otherworldly, timeless fairy setting that situates the viewer amongst a very real Versailles whilst encouraging them to look to a magical world beyond.

Further fashionable illustrations of Perrault’s fairy stories by Edmund Dulac:

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