With the release of Marie Antoinette 20 years ago this month, Sofia Coppola crystallized a visual language of irreverent extravagance. This was not a traditional period film, but a story of a 14-year-old thrown into stifling royalty by marriage, told through the distinct lens of a young woman. The realm of pretty things—and the act of obtaining them—is perhaps the only one Marie herself can control. So the undercurrent was one of fabulousity. Coppola, who both wrote the screenplay and directed the film, used anachronisms as a style philosophy; yes, you are watching the dauphine of 18th-century France, but she’s still a teenager who, if alive in 2006, would probably wear Converse and listen to the Strokes. (Shoe and song each made brief appearances in the film.)
This fall, Marie Antoinette celebrates 20 years with a documentary by Coppola’s mother and a coffee-table book—both titled Making Marie Antoinette—alongside an exhibition at Versailles and a theatrical re-release. But this celebratory mood is relatively recent. Despite its now cult-classic status, Marie Antoinette was initially panned upon its release by critics, who dismissed what they saw as its shallow gloss on world history. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France, a country whose residents were none too thrilled at its limited view of the French Revolution. But really, it just took a few years to find the intended audience: young women and girls like Coppola’s often-depicted subjects.
My first taste of Marie Antoinette came from film stills and GIFs on Tumblr circa 2010. It took me a few years to actually sit down and watch it start to finish, but I was bewitched long before that. Something about this melancholic, confectionery world intrigued my teenage self. I felt like I was watching fashion photography in motion. Coppola, after all, often pulls ideas from and inspires the fashion world. John Galliano’s Dior, specifically the Fall 2000 Couture collection, featured heavily on the film’s mood board. And now, decades later, seeds of Kirsten Dunst’s portrayal of Marie Antoinette can be felt on the runways for Spring 2027—just look at Acne Studios’s fanciful footwear and silk moiré skirts this season. Coppola took frivolity seriously, but in a way where you knew she was in on the joke. And, in doing so, she allowed her audience to feel validated in those inclinations as well.
Ahead, Coppola speaks to Bazaar about the value of devoting so much of the budget to costumes, the beauty of irreverence, and how her own well-documented minimalist personal style fits into all of this.
Watching this documentary, you can’t help but notice how intense the costume process was. It took hours to get the actors ready to shoot—and it often delayed shooting quite a bit. Looking back, what’s the value of that headache now to you?
I just have so much admiration for [costume designer] Milena [Canonero]. She’s so incredible. I just saw the film projected on a big screen, and taking in all of it, I was like, How did she coordinate all those different characters, every sock and every ribbon? It’s just incredible. My mom was such a fan of hers.
It was always stressful when we were shooting, but then it was always worth it. Now, we’ve learned that when you’re doing that kind of thing, you need time. And also we were having to shoot out of order because of being in Versailles, so there were just so many hurdles. I’m glad that we got to show all the work that went into it.
It also often seems that clothes are the only thing Marie can control. How important was showing her obsession with fashion and pretty things?
I felt like that was her only creative expression. She created this world around her because she had no way to affect the world outside of that. I also feel like it’s relatable; they were even doing that then to cheer themselves up. They buy pretty clothes, which we still do.
This is the movie that launched a thousand mood boards. On Instagram, people post stills and just write “mood.” Did you create a mood board for this film?
Yes, that was definitely the starting point. It was fun at the exhibition in Versailles to get out all the mood boards. There were pictures of macarons and John Galliano dresses. I was really inspired by how to make her look fashionable to a modern eye, but still be in the period. Milena and I talked about that a lot, because it was different from things she had done in the past.
Can you talk a little bit more about making those period pieces fashionable for the mid-2000s?
There’s a book, Her Style: Hair by Odile Gilbert, who did the hair, that I looked at a lot. She was a fashion person who worked with Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld. I think any time I’ve worked on a period film, I’m thinking about what looks appealing today. Some [of the old things] look weird to us now. So I’m going with the ones closer to what is attractive to us now. And then just adding that kind of fun, teen irreverent spirit with it, like, girls in their bedroom lying around and thinking about the boy they like. Trying to make it human was always the goal.
When I visited Versailles, her real rooms were this bright turquoise color. You never think of that period having bright colors! I went to the Met Costume Institute and they showed me some clothes from that period, and I was really surprised by the colors. Usually period films have these faded earth tones from paintings that have been faded over time. And traditional period films rent the same costumes from the same rental houses. They all look old and sad. So having Milena build and create all these new costumes gave it a vibrancy. We had to put all of our money in the costume department and have every beautiful fabric to really indulge and get in the bubble of Marie Antoinette.
The movie took on a life of its own after the release. It raised a generation of Tumblr kids in the 2010s. Has it been fun to watch the influence?
It’s incredible. People don’t realize this now, but when it came out, it got bad reviews. It didn’t really have an audience at all. We were so disappointed because we put so much work into it. We thought we were happy with it, Kirsten and I, and then it just kind of disappeared and wasn’t received in a warm way. I knew there was an audience for it, but we didn’t find it at first. It was a fun surprise that, 10 years later, I started to hear people saying that they were watching it. I was like, really? I don’t know how. And now, with everyone exchanging all of the images and stuff, it’s been really fun to see.
Today, girls and women have a real voice in the culture that didn’t exist back then. It’s been really exciting to see that that audience matters. That is who I was always trying to make stuff for.
Do you ever find yourself looking at fashion photography or runway and thinking it feels referential of the work you did?
It’s just fun because I was referencing Galliano, and to see those influences are still continuing on, I just feel like part of something.
People are obsessed with the images of the stars with MacBooks and headphones. It shows this obsession with anachronisms in style and the kind of punk power of it, even though the ones you did in the movie were actually quite subtle.
My friend Andrew Durham, who took the photos on set, he always had an eye for that. And in my mom’s documentary, she talks about the break from reality when you’re seeing these period people getting their microphones at craft service, having a coffee. I think that mix is always fun.
Did it feel as punk as it was received when you were throwing Converse into the shot or using the Cure in the soundtrack?
I thought we were having fun with it. There was even one scene where we had a white Rolls-Royce parked in front of the Petit Trianon, but then it felt out of place. It was always about trying to figure out how much of that to do. I mean, I wanted to be irreverent with it because I knew that it was a little bit rebellious to take on French history and kind of turn it around. So I was definitely going for it.
This film established a professional style that people really associate you with, but you also are so known for your personal style that has its own more pared-back legacy. How do you contextualize your approach to film with how you get dressed and just generally what you’re interested in personally?
I don’t really think about it, but I’ve always really been into fashion and clothes since I was a little kid. It’s just something I really enjoy. It’s my escapism; if I’m stressed at work, then I’ll be excited to look at a fashion collection. I was listening to some psychologists saying that there are things that you just love unreasonably. And for me, fashion is that. I always get inspiration from photography. And I kind of learned about photography through fashion magazines and then got more into photography.
It’s fun to get dressed up for a special occasion, but then in regular life, I think I’m pretty boring. I just stick to a uniform because, especially when I’m shooting, I don’t want to think about what I’m wearing. I have a ritual of getting my shirts, and I wear the same shirt over and over. But it’s fun to pick out the new fabrics for my new shirts. When I make a movie, I have to wear practical shoes because I’m working all day, and I never understood how Carine Roitfeld would always be at shoots in stilettos. I appreciate the glamour, but I’m probably more practical.
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