The V&A’s Marie Antoinette Style exhibition will spotlight Manolo Blahnik’s shoes as a defining element

The timeless elegance of Manolo Blahnik shoes meets the grandeur of 18th-century fashion in Marie Antoinette Style, a landmark exhibition opening at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on September 20th, 2025. Running through March 22nd, 2026, the show will spotlight the aesthetic legacy of France’s last queen consort, presenting her as both a tragic figure and an enduring muse for fashion, design, and culture.

‘Marie Antoinette Style’ exhibition: a vision beyond Versailles

The Marie Antoinette Style exhibition is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, bringing together 250 rare objects, many of which have never left Versailles. Highlights include fragments of lavish court dress, jewels from Marie Antoinette’s personal collection, intimate accessories from her toilette case, and even the final note she ever penned. Curators emphasize that the queen’s influence went far beyond her wardrobe, shaping design, interiors, and the decorative arts of her time and beyond.

Blahnik, who has long been fascinated by the queen, called the exhibition a “dream fulfilled” and a chance to reclaim her story as one of resilience, individuality, and modernity.

Manolo Blahnik’s capsule: shoes at the heart of the story

At the heart of the exhibition is footwear — a passion that Marie Antoinette herself indulged with abandon, famously acquiring several pairs each week. For Blahnik, shoes are not just accessories but a way of expressing character, sensuality, and even defiance. His capsule collection created for the show takes inspiration from the queen’s wardrobe, reviving the pastel silks and delicate embellishments he once designed for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

Curators note that Blahnik’s work captures more than historical detail; it channels the queen’s presence and even the way she moved. As one explained, the designer’s gift lies in bringing Marie Antoinette’s spirit back to life, reminding us that her style was never just about appearances — it was a language of power, freedom, and self-expression.

Through theatrical staging, sensory installations, and an extraordinary range of objects, the Marie Antoinette Style exhibition invites visitors to reconsider a figure who has been demonized, romanticized, and reimagined for centuries. Seen through the lens of Manolo Blahnik shoes, her story becomes one of reinvention: a woman who turned her isolation at Versailles into an aesthetic revolution that continues to shape fashion and culture today.