February 16, 2019 • 33 mins
We're revisiting an episode from 2014, where we discuss the legendary wardrobe of Marie-Antoinette. Where did all those glorious clothes come from? In large part, they were the work of Rose Bertin, a milliner who found herself the stylist to the queen.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and happy Saturday everybody. If you had not had
a chance to check out the podcast Dressed to the
History of Fashion now is a great time because they
have just started season two, so if you have missed it,
Dressed is another show in our network hosted by April
Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, and April has been on this
show a couple of times. To celebrate the start of
(00:22):
their second season, we have picked a fashion history episode
out of the archives today. It is Rose Berton, who
was known as history's first fashion designer and if you
are hungry for more, rosebrut After this episode, Dressed Tess
her covered as well. They did that one back in April.
In that episode, they talked to fashion and textile historian
Dr Kimberly Chrisman Campbell for her perspective. Welcome to Stuff
(00:48):
you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the pod. Asked, I'm Holly Fry and
I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. We're talking about something I like
a lot today. I'm so excited, actually so in my
sort of zone of pet topics. It's a it's a
(01:11):
big it's an intersection of several zones, it really is. Uh.
And the legendary wardrobe of Marie Antoinette, who is not
exactly who we're talking about, but she does figure prominently
in the story. Her wardrobe has been criticized, it's been envied,
it's been discussed to no end by historians and sociologists. Uh.
But where did all those glorious clothes come from is
(01:32):
a bigger question. And in large part they were the
work of a woman named Rose Bertent and her staff.
And Barton was a milliner who found herself basically the
stylus to the queen, and she enjoyed a level of
privilege that even royals were not really given at that time. Uh.
And while there were certainly other people designing clothes long
(01:52):
before Berton, she was the first to really make this
sort of transition from an anonymous dressmaker, although we'll talk
in just a second about that term, uh, to a
famous dressmaker to like basically a famous designer. Uh. And
this was all because of the patronage of you know,
a famous clothes horse. And a note before we get started, UH,
(02:12):
you'll hear us refer to Rose Bertas throughout the episode
as a milliner, which in today's parlance would mean that
she was a hat maker, but in this time, someone
with that title didn't only make hats. A milliner could
be called upon to make dresses, to add trim and
detailing to existing gowns. Sometimes, like a gown would be
brought in to be refreshed and all the trims would
(02:33):
be taken off and new trims would be put on
and different um alterations would be made to make it
look new and different. Other accessories, sometimes even gloves and
underpinnings were also within the purview of a milliner. Uh.
I use the terms interchangeably as milliner and dressmaker. Some
historians get a little bit prickly about that um because
(02:56):
calling her a dressmaker sort of seems to devalue her
position a little. It to me, it's a very important
position to be called a dressmaker. But just so you know,
like she's technically a milliner, that would be her title. Uh.
I'm gonna use words interchangeably. I'm okay with that, and
I won't even talk about We don't go into it,
although we do mention one person related the millinery trade
(03:17):
at this time sometimes had some negative associations with it
of women working in it being also applying another trade
at times like it was not known to be the
most virtuous um occupation. Suddenly this makes the Seamstress Guild
and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books really funny. I mean, it
(03:39):
was funny already, and now you haven't just told me
that it is even more funny. Yeah, and we'll mention
one other person that was kind of tied to the
millinery trade. That will kind of also make that a
little bit clearer, and you'll see the association's uh. But
we're not really going into that whole the ceed side
of it too much. Shall we get started? Absolutely? So.
Rose was born at Ammia, and that was a city
(04:00):
about a hundred and twenty kilometers north of Parents, and
she was born on July second, seventy seven. Her name
when she was born was Marie Jeanne Berton. And one
of the things that's interesting about this time in history
is that people would change their names pretty frequently, sometimes
as a move up the latter thing and sometimes not.
But you will not hear her referred to that with
(04:21):
that name again. So it just heads up her parents,
Nicholas and Marie Marguerite Breton. We're not particularly wealthy. Uh,
and in an effort to provide from Marisian and her
younger brother Jean Luran, her mother worked as a sick
nurse to supplement the family income. Is what her father
made didn't really make enough for them to raise and
educate their children, which was something they really um prioritized.
(04:45):
There's a story in emil langlades bertim biography that Rose,
when she was still a child, became just completely obsessed
with having her palm read by a fortune teller who
was reported to be extremely insightful and was also imprisoned nearby.
And so since she had no money, Rose allegedly starved
starved herself so that she could bring food to the
(05:07):
fortune teller in exchange for having her palm read. Uh.
The reading was rendered, and according to the tale, the
young girl was told that she would quote rise to
great fortune and one day where a court dress. Yeah,
it's interesting. Uh. That biography, by the way, which will
reference a few more times and was one of the
big sources for this, was written in and I Uh.
(05:30):
He did a lot of digging through records to get
a lot of stuff, a lot of the details and
the the data about her existence and some of the
numbers and stuff right, but there is a little bit
of flourish, so I immediately kind of questioned this story,
but it's an interesting one to include this idea that
she was kind of obsessive and willing to do what
(05:54):
she had to do to achieve what she wanted. Rosa's father, Nicholas,
died on January of seventeen fifty four, and that left
the family to survive as best they could on his
wife's income. She was still working as a sick nurse
and the family struggled, but Rose always assisted her mother
whenever possible. She was not a girl that was afraid
of hard work, so when she was only sixteen, Rose
(06:17):
decided to move to Paris. She was smart and pretty
and decided to use her charms to secure a position
as an apprentice at a millinery shop. And the shop
was called Trade Gallant, which translates to gallant stroke or
gallant feature. And this shop was run by Mademoiselle Paget,
and it was already a supplier of accessories to the
(06:38):
courts of France and Spain, so it was really quite
a good position to get into. Around this same time,
a young woman named Jean Bick was also an apprentice
at another millinery shop, which was run by Mademoiselle Labu
and Jean Biq would later find her way into the
name Madame Duberry and set her own place in history
(06:59):
as King Louis fift mistress. Yeah, that's kind of one
of those tie ins of a woman who maybe was
not super virtuous working in the millinary trade. Still laughing
about the seamstress skilled. Uh, and Rose had not been
working for very long for Mademoiselle when she was dispatched
one evening to make a delivery to the Princess de Conti.
(07:22):
And while she was at the princess's residence, she made
small talk with a woman that she believed to be
a chambermaid. So, of course it turns out that she
was actually talking to the princess, and Rose was just
hugely embarrassed at her gaff and she apologized profusely. The princess,
who had found her to be just quite charming, reassured
(07:43):
her that no ill had been done, her identity had
not been made a parent. The princess also promised ongoing
goodwill towards pretend on her part. Yeah, that was a
good friend to have made even though it was accidental
and maybe definitely also in barrassing. Yeah, and the story
is related in a way that she showed up and
(08:03):
it was quite late in the evening, and this woman
was already kind of dressed down. She was definitely not
in robes that would suggest her position at all. So
that's why Rose thought, Oh, it's just a mate, just
chat while we wait for other people to come and
look at these gowns I've brought. And then it was
not the case at all, um, and the Princess's fondness
for this young milliner was almost immediately manifest Soon after
(08:26):
the two men and this embarrassing but fundamentally beneficial event
took place. A royal marriage between the Duc de Chartre
and Louise Marie led de Bourbon was arranged, and Rose,
at her new royal friends recommendation, was called upon to
make the bride's trousseau. She's like a huge get in
terms of that's a big deal. This was a really
(08:50):
lucrative bridal order, and it not only brought Rose into
the favor of the royals, who would all need clothing
and accessories, but it also elevated her position in the
shop Mademoiselle Pagelle made rosa partner in the in the
millinery shop, and from this point on Rose's royal patrons
only grew in number. The Duchess de Chapla became a protectress. She,
(09:12):
like the Princess de Conti, looked out for Rose and
really helped along her business interests. Unfortunately, the Duke Duchat
also took an interest in Rose, and Uh really pursued
her very diligently in the hopes of a romantic relationship,
but she really was not having that at all. Whether
this is because she was loyal to her customer, the Duchess,
(09:35):
or simply because she just was not interested in the
man is is basically unclear, but either way, she had
no time for that business. Nay was her response. Uh,
and rumors of a plot that the Duke had concocted
to kidnap Rose and take her away to a country
house to sort of force her to become his mistress
(09:56):
reached the Milliner. She found out about them, but it
made her const only fearful that you know, at any
moment someone was going to pop out from around the
corner and snatch her and take her away to the country.
It sounds terrible. It really does. Just trying to do
her work her alone, trying to make your wife's clothes. Police,
get out of my way. So one day Rose was
visiting the comtest Duson about an order, and the Duke
(10:20):
came and also made this appearance. She refused to get
out of receipt when the Duke entered, and when the
Countess questioned her about why she was acting this way,
she was straight up front about it. She explained that
the Duke had clearly forgotten his place in pursuit of her,
and so she would not honor their societal gap. Yeah,
She's like, when he remembers his place, I will treat
(10:40):
him like he belongs in that place. Just kind of
a wonderfully sassy and just to do it in front
of one of his you know, social equals was very cool.
People get mad sometimes when we talk about how much
we love the people were talking about, but this is
the moment when the switch goes to I love her. Uh.
And the dude was caught in his game in front
(11:01):
of this pier and he did not deny it, but
he did call Rose a little serpent. I saw. It
was by the same translator of this biography and one
he called her a viper and in one he called
her a serpent, like two different um translations by the
same person. So, but the important thing is that he
left her alone after that, kind of gave up his pursuit. Uh.
(11:23):
And before we get to the next step in Rose's career,
do you want to pause for a moment and have
a word from a sponsor? Yes? Sweet, So back to
Rose Bertin as her popularity with the royal class group,
she sort of outgrew her position with Mademoiselle Pegette. So
(11:46):
the Duchess was in the habit of assisting young women
in their entrepreneurial efforts, and she had already given Rose
her favor. So with the Duchess's financial backing, Rose set
up her shop O Grand Mogul in the Rude Decent Honorey.
And in addition to bankrolling this enterprise, the Duchess de
Chiltloob also used her position to send business Rose's way
(12:08):
and kind of ant as Rosa's pr agent within the
Royal class. But she had already been doing to some degree.
But once she had financially set up this business, she
really wanted it to succeed in seventeen seventy, the Duchess
met with Madame Danielaya and Madame the Misery, and these
were the lady in waiting in first chambermaid who had
been selected to attend the new Dauphine, who was Marie Antoinette.
(12:31):
The Duchess praised Rosa's skills and personality and suggested that
she be chosen to make the ensemble that the new
princess would change into at Strasburg border crossing as she
stepped onto French soil and became a woman of France. Yes, so,
just in case anybody doesn't know that hasn't seen the
movies about Marie Antoinette, etcetera. When she crossed from Austria
(12:55):
into France, she changed all of her clothes, she changed
everything so that she would emerge onto French soil as
a French princess and leave Austria behind. And so Rose
made that outfit that she changed into, which is a
huge deal because that was also the outfit that most
people would see her in for the first time, sort
of her arrival ensemble symbolic and also actually important. Yes,
(13:17):
and the lobbying of the Duchessess Chapla along with similar
please from other royals that Barton had won over as
clients actually got the young entrepreneur her order and the
first exposure to her of her work to the new Princess. So,
in addition to it being important because it was a
huge imagery issue for France, it also gave the woman
(13:39):
who would be queen her first taste of French clothing,
so it was important on many levels. Yeah, so Bertense
soon got her first in person introduction to the princess
from Austria. It's entirely likely that the talented but also
business savvy Milliner was just completely aware of the opportunity
that was presenting itself to her. If she pleased the
(14:01):
new Dauphine, all of France would be clamoring for her work.
And thanks again to the high praise that her existing
clientele gave Bertin, she was awarded a royal order for
the princess in the amount of two twenty thousand livres,
which is worth roughly four thousand dollars at the time,
so that's in seventeen seventy two, so that is a
(14:21):
huge fortune. Really, So we should point out that this
rise to the favor of the queen was not like
an instantaneous process. Marie Antoinette had arrived in France in
seventeen seventy and it was seventeen seventy two when Bertag
got her first order. There were a lot more to
come after that, though. The dauphine's clothing allowance in seventy
(14:44):
seventeen seventy two was one hundred and twenty thousand livres annually,
and that's roughly twenty four thousand dollars, very very roughly,
but about one quarter of that money. I mean, even
in today's money, if you just told me you have
twenty four thousand dollars to spend on clothes here, I'd
be like, right on high five, I'm laughing. I would
show up to work in a ball gown every day. Um.
(15:07):
But about one quarter of that expense was allocated for quote,
ordinary dresses, like the dresses she would just wear in
her day to day life if there was nothing important
to do. Just highly unlikely when you are a dauphine,
because then three quarters of that was designated for extraordinary expenses,
i e. Fancy pants, unicorn dresses, like all of the
big you're going to an event, you're being presented at
(15:28):
X y or z, you're going to meet another member
of royalty from another country that's here with an envoy,
any of those types of things. So that already is
a lot of money. In October of seventeen seventy four,
Marie Ants when it's clothing allowance rose to two hundred
thousand libra. Yeah. Again, it's almost doubling it from before.
(15:52):
I mean not quite almost, but almost. It brings it
to I mean, I'm doing quick math in my head
and brings it to close to at the time still,
I mean, it's like a million dollar budget. Now. I
could not find a good comparison of like what that
would elise. It's really hard to compare dollar amounts well,
and especially because livra no longer exists as a form
of currency, so tricky. But once Marie Antoinette became queen,
(16:16):
she uh in her first year as queen, she accrued
in a debt of three hundred thousand livre in clothing expenses,
and the King did not actually know she was racking
up quite that much, but she did it just the same.
So the vast majority of this money was going right
to Rose Berton, and so this sounds incredibly lucrative and
(16:38):
it is. It was only a small portion of the
money that she was making through her shop. So that
where the Dauphine and then Queen went for her gowns
and her accessories, that was where everyone wanted to go. Yeah,
I mean Barton really had kind of become this huge
um business juggernaut in a way, because you know, and
(16:59):
we should I shouldn't I mischaracterized when I wrote in
the notes that it's like a small part of her business.
It was a huge part of her business. But she
was getting a lot of business on top of that.
So I mean millions of dollars in the very vague
equivalent of today's money being spent in this one millinery
shop on clothes by the royal class. Uh. And we
(17:23):
talked about Marie Antoinette becoming queen, and we should talk
about her coronation gown because it was quite something and
it was a batime creation. So traditionally, the clothing choices
for the male royals and attendance at a coronation ceremony
would be in a style which evoked no specific era
or style of dress. Of course, neither Murray Antoinette nor
(17:48):
Rose Bertant would agree to that idea at all. Yeah.
And additionally, I mean they kind of had this this
room to argue about it or argue their case. Because
a royal consort had not been part of a coronation
since Catherine de Medici in seven, there had been several
bachelor kings in a row on the French throne. So, uh,
(18:09):
there was more than a two hundred year long lag
since the last lady in Marie Antoinette's position, and there
wasn't a convention to follow based on that, and so
the Dauphine and her designer kind of took advantage of
that gap in protocol to go, all right, we're making
a huge gown and it's going to be ridiculous and wonderful.
The ridiculous and wonderful is right. The gown bertem made
(18:30):
for Marie Antoinette to where it was encrusted with jewels,
including many many sapphires, and also heavy embroidery has made
the garment enormously heavy. Uh. Dressmaker slash designer tried to
arrange a special carriage just to take it to the
soon to be clean Yeah. I don't know that she
was granted that wish. And Marie Antoinette was placed on
(18:52):
a special stand to view the ceremony. And I don't
know if you know, oad bearing issues were part of that.
Because of this gown, she couldn't really walk around in it. Yeah,
gowns of this era were already extremely heavy compared to
what we wear today. This would be extraordinarily heavy on
(19:13):
top of that already heavy, Yeah, I mean it would
not be. People probably have the image of the big,
wide hipped you know, the penny a U shaped gowns.
It's not uncommon for those to take twenty yards of fabric,
just because of the many layers and the the shape
of it is so wide, it's so on top of
(19:34):
the weight of twenty yards of fabric is the weight
of Heaven only knows the value of all of those
jewels and heavy like gold bouton embroidery, which is very
heavy on its own, and then underpinnings in case that
was not enough. Yes, so it was a significant achievement
in clothing engineering. I would even say so. As the
(19:59):
crowd followed Marie Antoinette in style, herten was able to
develop this rather ingenious way to just keep the money
flowing in. She would take the orders from the rest
of the royals for gowns that were similar to the
ones of the Queen war And as the Queen saw
more and more people dressed like her, she would get
tired of that and want something new and different. Yes,
so brit Town would design new styles for her Majesty.
(20:22):
You know, she also had a hand in in the hairstyle,
so there was lifting the hair higher, there was shifting
the drape of a skirt by bustling at all, a polonaise,
accenting with feathers, et cetera. And with each of these
changes that kind of updated the style, the masses would
follow and the Queen would again want something new. So
she kind of developed this perfect cycle of just continuous
(20:43):
orders planned obsolescence of royal clothing so smart it was
really an effective business model. Her shops stayed busy with
an array of clients wanting all the latest styles while
she simultaneously worked on fashions for the Queen that we're
going to become the next big style and ring the
same people right back to her for a wardrobe update.
(21:03):
And in France and particularly the Court of France at
the time, to be out of date on your style
was really an embarrassment and could really affect you socially,
which is ridiculous, but that's how it worked. Uh. And
Barton normally visited the Queen twice a week and she
would discuss new designs. She would review sketches and textiles.
They would talk about the styling and accessorizing that was
(21:25):
going to accompany individual looks. Uh. And so she really
became her stylist, and in many regards, even though there
were other people making clothes for the Queen as well.
If that can just blow your mind some more hundreds
of gowns a year um. But this level of access
to the Queen that Bartag had would normally be absolutely
unheard of for someone outside the royal circle. But Marie
(21:47):
Antoinet's obsession with fashion afforded the millinery these special privileges,
and it also earned bear Town the nickname Minister of Fashion.
Among Marie Antoinette's critics, she was really getting land based
in the press a lot as being the source of
waste or one of the purveyors of waste in the
the royal court. That she they had realized she had
(22:08):
figured out this wonderful way to keep money coming in constantly,
and that she was purposely kind of putting an expiration
date on everything by making similar copies of dresses. Uh,
and they they really kind of lampooned her in the press.
So it's important to remember that while Burton was benefiting
financially from her relationship with the Queen and the Queen's circle,
(22:31):
the real benefit was this so called protection that she
had been offered by so many of them. So, for example,
at one point one of Breton's relatives, who was a
widow making her living as a bookseller, was arrested for
selling pamphlets that satirized public officials in seventeen seventy three.
Her town was able to just call up all of
her friends among the royalty for help. So first her
(22:53):
relative was released from the Bestie, but at her sentencing
she was exiled from Paris for five years as a nishment,
and Barton continued to campaign on behalf of the bookseller
after this. This sentencing happened, and thanks to pressure from
Marie Antoinette and other ladies of the court, that sentence
was overturned a month after it was issued. So not
(23:15):
only did this woman wind up being freed, but then
she was invited to dine with the Queen, and she
became the court bookseller, which was a position that she
held until the Revolution ousted Louis the sixteenth from his seat.
(23:35):
And in another instance, during a royal procession through Paris
en route to an event which had many carriages in it,
the Queen, seeing Barton and her staff on the balcony
of the shop in rudissent Hore, acknowledged her dressmaker, which
is a huge honor for you know, a queen to
point you out and kind of nod to you in
one of these processions, and this resulted in every carriage
(23:58):
after that of the King and Queen also having to
acknowledge her. Apparently, Barton spent the day basically curteyed carriages,
and on at least two equate occasions, the Queen also
arranged for Barton to be led to a better seat
at the theater when she was when she realized that
her stylist was sitting in a less than stellar position
to enjoy the entertainment. So Breton had really achieved an
(24:22):
unprecedented level, like an unprecedented rise from her beginnings to
where she ended up once she had the favor of
the Queen, so to be granted these kinds of favor
favors and especially with this much regularity by those in
the highest positions of society, was quite an accomplishment for this,
you know girl from I'm Young. So other women such
(24:44):
as Madame Duberry, who we talked about earlier, had basically
slept their way to the top of French society. Breton
had used her entrepreneurial skill to get there. Yeah, which
really says quite a bit about her and supports the
idea of how very smart she was. Uh, and she
cemented her place as a milliner to the nobility. She
did have a little bit of uh, that thing that
(25:08):
often happens to people when they get famous really quickly.
She got a little bit of a superior attitude sometimes. Uh.
There are tales of her telling clients that she was
going to delay their orders because she and the queen
had decided that a style should not be debuted until later.
And she would sometimes shrug off customers of lower rank
by selling them fashions that were out of date, even
(25:30):
though wearing them would be social suicide. Like there's one
tale of a nobleman who is trying to get a
hat for a relative or a friend who is from
the country, and she's like, sell them on the last
month's hats. Yeah. So she really was just kind of
saying like, you're unimportant, I don't really care about you,
which is a terrible way to do business, but she
had so much she kind of felt like she could
(25:53):
make these, uh, less than ideal statements to people. She
also said to have responded to criticism from people that
by reminding them that her work was good enough for
the Queen. I personally have no problem with her saying this. Yeah,
it sounds like she was pretty petulant about it though,
where someone said, oh, you know this dress, uh, this
(26:16):
bodice isn't quite right, and she'd be like, it's good
enough with the Queen. Yeah, just kind of a snooty,
petuity way to do it. I can't understand it in
point of fact, but uh. She would also turn down
work for the wives of white collar workers, so like
if a lawyer's wife came to her, she'd be like,
I don't really need your business. Uh. This backfired on her, though,
because one of her employees uh set up shop for
(26:37):
herself and made a pretty good living catering to the
customers that Barton cast off, and they became rivals to
some degree, and after an altercation where the furious Barton
allegedly spat in the face of this former employee, there
was a dramatic legal battle. So her snobbery kind of
bit her on the tail. So Mademoiselle Pico, who was
(26:58):
the former employee, said that she was so shocked by
Britann's behavior that she passed out. Britang countered that she
had never behaved in such a manner. The initial judgment
found Bertag guilty, but she appealed, and at this point
the Queen intervened. So not only was the previous judgment overturned,
but Mademoiselle Pico was also ordered to pay the expenses
that were associated with the appeal. So yet another example
(27:21):
of where it was really good for Barton to have
all these friends in high places. So because of her
close association with the Queen and the Queen's circle, it
is probably no surprise that as the revolution shifted the
balance of power in France, it also shifted Barton's fortunes.
Even after the royal family was in custody of the
National Assembly, Burtang continued to deliver gowns to the Queen,
(27:44):
although they were much simpler than what she'd been making before,
and these deliveries, uh, it's worth pointing out, we're definitely
an act of devotion. So at the time, the Milliner,
having lost her social standing in large part, was also
having trouble collecting debts from other clients, and so even
though her finances were starting to crumble, she still clothed
(28:04):
the dethroned queen like she was still very appreciative of
their relationship. Once Marie An's, when it was executed, Pretend,
realizing that things were not going to go well for her,
fled to London. She set up a shop there and
catered to many of her previous patrons from France who
had also fled. She did return to France a couple
of years later, though, in but she had no career
(28:26):
at the level that she had once known to go
back to. Her name was associated still with Louis the
sixteenth the Mariantoinette, and the styles of dresses that she
really excelled at were no longer fashionable. Uh. The fashion
dolls that she had once made as miniature versions of
her fashion designs, which would be sent out sort of
as three D catalogs for people to see like it
was almost like if you picture a fashioned doll today
(28:49):
in a beautiful gown, and you would go, I want
that gown. Um. They became popular as collectible, so she
was still making those, and she was still making a living.
It wasn't like she was a pariah, but she is
really never able to return to the level of success
that she had known during Louis the sixteenth reign. Eventually,
Louie Nicolaubertin, who was Rose's nephew, was set up in
her old shop and he sold linen's and other fancy articles.
(29:14):
Rose still owned the shop, but she was mired in
ongoing efforts to settle all the old pre revolution debts,
and in the early eighteen hundreds, as she had gotten older,
Rose would occasionally still sell small orders to royals who
remembered her as a broker of the most elegant styles.
But these really served to kind of stroke her ego
more than they filled her pocketbook. While she struggled financially,
(29:37):
Rose also offered her services to old friends as favors.
She never really pressed them for payment. It's like all
of her wiles that she had used to make such
a huge fortune stopped being part of her her operating plan. Yeah. Uh,
you know, while she was at the height of her career,
(29:58):
really difficult and judgmental by some people's descriptions, she seemed
to soften a lot after the revolution took the wind
out of her sales, and I think she saw a
sort of camaraderie with these people that were in a
similar boat, of like, we had this life and now
everything has changed, and now we're kind of all in
this together, and let's take care of each other with dresses,
with beautiful clothes. Uh. Sadly, Rose died on September eighteen
(30:23):
thirteen in the village of Epinay, where she owned land
and spent her time away from Paris. She was sixty six,
and while she was certainly no longer famous the way
she had been in her heyday, her obituary did run
in numerous papers, and there were many kind remembrances written
about both her style and her generosity, particularly later in life,
(30:44):
although even before she became famous, people would talk about
how how sweet she was and how she was very kind.
So it seems like she kind of became a little
bit of a tyrant for a brief period when she
was super wildly popular, uh, and then that shifted back
to sort of her her more natural nature. Her two
nephew us Claude Charlemagne and Nicholas, and two nieces discovered
that there were still many uncollected debts that were owed
(31:06):
to bertin and so after she died they did manage
to recover some of that money for the estate, but
it took several decades. They really had to work quite
diligently to collect any of that money. In the introduction
to the biography that we referenced earlier by Emil Langelade,
he wrote, the reign of Marie Antoinette was one of
(31:28):
futility in Chiffon, and if the queen did not create
the office of a minister of fashion, the court of
Versailles was nevertheless always crowded with hair dressers, dressmakers, and
milliners who exercised more influence than the king's counselors. Rosebertown
was one of their numbers. Yeah, she definitely had a
huge impact on fashion and happenings of the day. I
(31:52):
mean it was more than close. She was making clothes,
but it was more than clothes, and I just kind
of love, you know, and he backed worry on fashion
designers well, and the first portion of the story that
basically going from nothing to being the primary dressmaker to
the queen reminds me of Don't Laugh the Katy Perry movie,
(32:13):
where we basically we basically learned that all of her
stylists and make up people and people making her dresses,
a lot of them are are people that she knew
from before she became really famous, and she kind of
brought them to mak her crazy outlandish clothing. And now
they have makers and entertainment. Now they have careers in entertainment.
Not not so much. You understand that that that connection,
(32:36):
you know. And I'm also quite fond of the Katy
Perry movie for reasons that are somewhat foreign to me
as not particularly a fan of Katy Perry. Yeah, I'm
in the same boat. That was a good movie. Tracy
got me to watch it, and it's not historical in
any way, but well, my friend Alice watched it and
was like, everyone should watch this because you just get
to see people genuinely love something that they're really excited
(32:59):
about for an hour and a half off And you know,
I am thankful to Alice every time I think about
Katie Perry. Thank you so much for joining us on
this Saturday. If you have heard an email address or
a Facebook you are l or something similar over the
(33:19):
course of today's episode, since it is from the archive
that might be out of date now, you can email
us at History podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
and you can find us all over social media at
missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show
on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
and wherever else you listen to podcasts. For more on
(33:43):
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com.
Hello and happy Saturday everybody. If you had not had
a chance to check out the podcast Dressed to the
History of Fashion now is a great time because they
have just started season two, so if you have missed it,
Dressed is another show in our network hosted by April
Callahan and Cassidy Zachary, and April has been on this
show a couple of times. To celebrate the start of
(00:22):
their second season, we have picked a fashion history episode
out of the archives today. It is Rose Berton, who
was known as history's first fashion designer and if you
are hungry for more, rosebrut After this episode, Dressed Tess
her covered as well. They did that one back in April.
In that episode, they talked to fashion and textile historian
Dr Kimberly Chrisman Campbell for her perspective. Welcome to Stuff
(00:48):
you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the pod. Asked, I'm Holly Fry and
I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. We're talking about something I like
a lot today. I'm so excited, actually so in my
sort of zone of pet topics. It's a it's a
(01:11):
big it's an intersection of several zones, it really is. Uh.
And the legendary wardrobe of Marie Antoinette, who is not
exactly who we're talking about, but she does figure prominently
in the story. Her wardrobe has been criticized, it's been envied,
it's been discussed to no end by historians and sociologists. Uh.
But where did all those glorious clothes come from is
(01:32):
a bigger question. And in large part they were the
work of a woman named Rose Bertent and her staff.
And Barton was a milliner who found herself basically the
stylus to the queen, and she enjoyed a level of
privilege that even royals were not really given at that time. Uh.
And while there were certainly other people designing clothes long
(01:52):
before Berton, she was the first to really make this
sort of transition from an anonymous dressmaker, although we'll talk
in just a second about that term, uh, to a
famous dressmaker to like basically a famous designer. Uh. And
this was all because of the patronage of you know,
a famous clothes horse. And a note before we get started, UH,
(02:12):
you'll hear us refer to Rose Bertas throughout the episode
as a milliner, which in today's parlance would mean that
she was a hat maker, but in this time, someone
with that title didn't only make hats. A milliner could
be called upon to make dresses, to add trim and
detailing to existing gowns. Sometimes, like a gown would be
brought in to be refreshed and all the trims would
(02:33):
be taken off and new trims would be put on
and different um alterations would be made to make it
look new and different. Other accessories, sometimes even gloves and
underpinnings were also within the purview of a milliner. Uh.
I use the terms interchangeably as milliner and dressmaker. Some
historians get a little bit prickly about that um because
(02:56):
calling her a dressmaker sort of seems to devalue her
position a little. It to me, it's a very important
position to be called a dressmaker. But just so you know,
like she's technically a milliner, that would be her title. Uh.
I'm gonna use words interchangeably. I'm okay with that, and
I won't even talk about We don't go into it,
although we do mention one person related the millinery trade
(03:17):
at this time sometimes had some negative associations with it
of women working in it being also applying another trade
at times like it was not known to be the
most virtuous um occupation. Suddenly this makes the Seamstress Guild
and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books really funny. I mean, it
(03:39):
was funny already, and now you haven't just told me
that it is even more funny. Yeah, and we'll mention
one other person that was kind of tied to the
millinery trade. That will kind of also make that a
little bit clearer, and you'll see the association's uh. But
we're not really going into that whole the ceed side
of it too much. Shall we get started? Absolutely? So.
Rose was born at Ammia, and that was a city
(04:00):
about a hundred and twenty kilometers north of Parents, and
she was born on July second, seventy seven. Her name
when she was born was Marie Jeanne Berton. And one
of the things that's interesting about this time in history
is that people would change their names pretty frequently, sometimes
as a move up the latter thing and sometimes not.
But you will not hear her referred to that with
(04:21):
that name again. So it just heads up her parents,
Nicholas and Marie Marguerite Breton. We're not particularly wealthy. Uh,
and in an effort to provide from Marisian and her
younger brother Jean Luran, her mother worked as a sick
nurse to supplement the family income. Is what her father
made didn't really make enough for them to raise and
educate their children, which was something they really um prioritized.
(04:45):
There's a story in emil langlades bertim biography that Rose,
when she was still a child, became just completely obsessed
with having her palm read by a fortune teller who
was reported to be extremely insightful and was also imprisoned nearby.
And so since she had no money, Rose allegedly starved
starved herself so that she could bring food to the
(05:07):
fortune teller in exchange for having her palm read. Uh.
The reading was rendered, and according to the tale, the
young girl was told that she would quote rise to
great fortune and one day where a court dress. Yeah,
it's interesting. Uh. That biography, by the way, which will
reference a few more times and was one of the
big sources for this, was written in and I Uh.
(05:30):
He did a lot of digging through records to get
a lot of stuff, a lot of the details and
the the data about her existence and some of the
numbers and stuff right, but there is a little bit
of flourish, so I immediately kind of questioned this story,
but it's an interesting one to include this idea that
she was kind of obsessive and willing to do what
(05:54):
she had to do to achieve what she wanted. Rosa's father, Nicholas,
died on January of seventeen fifty four, and that left
the family to survive as best they could on his
wife's income. She was still working as a sick nurse
and the family struggled, but Rose always assisted her mother
whenever possible. She was not a girl that was afraid
of hard work, so when she was only sixteen, Rose
(06:17):
decided to move to Paris. She was smart and pretty
and decided to use her charms to secure a position
as an apprentice at a millinery shop. And the shop
was called Trade Gallant, which translates to gallant stroke or
gallant feature. And this shop was run by Mademoiselle Paget,
and it was already a supplier of accessories to the
(06:38):
courts of France and Spain, so it was really quite
a good position to get into. Around this same time,
a young woman named Jean Bick was also an apprentice
at another millinery shop, which was run by Mademoiselle Labu
and Jean Biq would later find her way into the
name Madame Duberry and set her own place in history
(06:59):
as King Louis fift mistress. Yeah, that's kind of one
of those tie ins of a woman who maybe was
not super virtuous working in the millinary trade. Still laughing
about the seamstress skilled. Uh, and Rose had not been
working for very long for Mademoiselle when she was dispatched
one evening to make a delivery to the Princess de Conti.
(07:22):
And while she was at the princess's residence, she made
small talk with a woman that she believed to be
a chambermaid. So, of course it turns out that she
was actually talking to the princess, and Rose was just
hugely embarrassed at her gaff and she apologized profusely. The princess,
who had found her to be just quite charming, reassured
(07:43):
her that no ill had been done, her identity had
not been made a parent. The princess also promised ongoing
goodwill towards pretend on her part. Yeah, that was a
good friend to have made even though it was accidental
and maybe definitely also in barrassing. Yeah, and the story
is related in a way that she showed up and
(08:03):
it was quite late in the evening, and this woman
was already kind of dressed down. She was definitely not
in robes that would suggest her position at all. So
that's why Rose thought, Oh, it's just a mate, just
chat while we wait for other people to come and
look at these gowns I've brought. And then it was
not the case at all, um, and the Princess's fondness
for this young milliner was almost immediately manifest Soon after
(08:26):
the two men and this embarrassing but fundamentally beneficial event
took place. A royal marriage between the Duc de Chartre
and Louise Marie led de Bourbon was arranged, and Rose,
at her new royal friends recommendation, was called upon to
make the bride's trousseau. She's like a huge get in
terms of that's a big deal. This was a really
(08:50):
lucrative bridal order, and it not only brought Rose into
the favor of the royals, who would all need clothing
and accessories, but it also elevated her position in the
shop Mademoiselle Pagelle made rosa partner in the in the
millinery shop, and from this point on Rose's royal patrons
only grew in number. The Duchess de Chapla became a protectress. She,
(09:12):
like the Princess de Conti, looked out for Rose and
really helped along her business interests. Unfortunately, the Duke Duchat
also took an interest in Rose, and Uh really pursued
her very diligently in the hopes of a romantic relationship,
but she really was not having that at all. Whether
this is because she was loyal to her customer, the Duchess,
(09:35):
or simply because she just was not interested in the
man is is basically unclear, but either way, she had
no time for that business. Nay was her response. Uh,
and rumors of a plot that the Duke had concocted
to kidnap Rose and take her away to a country
house to sort of force her to become his mistress
(09:56):
reached the Milliner. She found out about them, but it
made her const only fearful that you know, at any
moment someone was going to pop out from around the
corner and snatch her and take her away to the country.
It sounds terrible. It really does. Just trying to do
her work her alone, trying to make your wife's clothes. Police,
get out of my way. So one day Rose was
visiting the comtest Duson about an order, and the Duke
(10:20):
came and also made this appearance. She refused to get
out of receipt when the Duke entered, and when the
Countess questioned her about why she was acting this way,
she was straight up front about it. She explained that
the Duke had clearly forgotten his place in pursuit of her,
and so she would not honor their societal gap. Yeah,
She's like, when he remembers his place, I will treat
(10:40):
him like he belongs in that place. Just kind of
a wonderfully sassy and just to do it in front
of one of his you know, social equals was very cool.
People get mad sometimes when we talk about how much
we love the people were talking about, but this is
the moment when the switch goes to I love her. Uh.
And the dude was caught in his game in front
(11:01):
of this pier and he did not deny it, but
he did call Rose a little serpent. I saw. It
was by the same translator of this biography and one
he called her a viper and in one he called
her a serpent, like two different um translations by the
same person. So, but the important thing is that he
left her alone after that, kind of gave up his pursuit. Uh.
(11:23):
And before we get to the next step in Rose's career,
do you want to pause for a moment and have
a word from a sponsor? Yes? Sweet, So back to
Rose Bertin as her popularity with the royal class group,
she sort of outgrew her position with Mademoiselle Pegette. So
(11:46):
the Duchess was in the habit of assisting young women
in their entrepreneurial efforts, and she had already given Rose
her favor. So with the Duchess's financial backing, Rose set
up her shop O Grand Mogul in the Rude Decent Honorey.
And in addition to bankrolling this enterprise, the Duchess de
Chiltloob also used her position to send business Rose's way
(12:08):
and kind of ant as Rosa's pr agent within the
Royal class. But she had already been doing to some degree.
But once she had financially set up this business, she
really wanted it to succeed in seventeen seventy, the Duchess
met with Madame Danielaya and Madame the Misery, and these
were the lady in waiting in first chambermaid who had
been selected to attend the new Dauphine, who was Marie Antoinette.
(12:31):
The Duchess praised Rosa's skills and personality and suggested that
she be chosen to make the ensemble that the new
princess would change into at Strasburg border crossing as she
stepped onto French soil and became a woman of France. Yes, so,
just in case anybody doesn't know that hasn't seen the
movies about Marie Antoinette, etcetera. When she crossed from Austria
(12:55):
into France, she changed all of her clothes, she changed
everything so that she would emerge onto French soil as
a French princess and leave Austria behind. And so Rose
made that outfit that she changed into, which is a
huge deal because that was also the outfit that most
people would see her in for the first time, sort
of her arrival ensemble symbolic and also actually important. Yes,
(13:17):
and the lobbying of the Duchessess Chapla along with similar
please from other royals that Barton had won over as
clients actually got the young entrepreneur her order and the
first exposure to her of her work to the new Princess. So,
in addition to it being important because it was a
huge imagery issue for France, it also gave the woman
(13:39):
who would be queen her first taste of French clothing,
so it was important on many levels. Yeah, so Bertense
soon got her first in person introduction to the princess
from Austria. It's entirely likely that the talented but also
business savvy Milliner was just completely aware of the opportunity
that was presenting itself to her. If she pleased the
(14:01):
new Dauphine, all of France would be clamoring for her work.
And thanks again to the high praise that her existing
clientele gave Bertin, she was awarded a royal order for
the princess in the amount of two twenty thousand livres,
which is worth roughly four thousand dollars at the time,
so that's in seventeen seventy two, so that is a
(14:21):
huge fortune. Really, So we should point out that this
rise to the favor of the queen was not like
an instantaneous process. Marie Antoinette had arrived in France in
seventeen seventy and it was seventeen seventy two when Bertag
got her first order. There were a lot more to
come after that, though. The dauphine's clothing allowance in seventy
(14:44):
seventeen seventy two was one hundred and twenty thousand livres annually,
and that's roughly twenty four thousand dollars, very very roughly,
but about one quarter of that money. I mean, even
in today's money, if you just told me you have
twenty four thousand dollars to spend on clothes here, I'd
be like, right on high five, I'm laughing. I would
show up to work in a ball gown every day. Um.
(15:07):
But about one quarter of that expense was allocated for quote,
ordinary dresses, like the dresses she would just wear in
her day to day life if there was nothing important
to do. Just highly unlikely when you are a dauphine,
because then three quarters of that was designated for extraordinary expenses,
i e. Fancy pants, unicorn dresses, like all of the
big you're going to an event, you're being presented at
(15:28):
X y or z, you're going to meet another member
of royalty from another country that's here with an envoy,
any of those types of things. So that already is
a lot of money. In October of seventeen seventy four,
Marie Ants when it's clothing allowance rose to two hundred
thousand libra. Yeah. Again, it's almost doubling it from before.
(15:52):
I mean not quite almost, but almost. It brings it
to I mean, I'm doing quick math in my head
and brings it to close to at the time still,
I mean, it's like a million dollar budget. Now. I
could not find a good comparison of like what that
would elise. It's really hard to compare dollar amounts well,
and especially because livra no longer exists as a form
of currency, so tricky. But once Marie Antoinette became queen,
(16:16):
she uh in her first year as queen, she accrued
in a debt of three hundred thousand livre in clothing expenses,
and the King did not actually know she was racking
up quite that much, but she did it just the same.
So the vast majority of this money was going right
to Rose Berton, and so this sounds incredibly lucrative and
(16:38):
it is. It was only a small portion of the
money that she was making through her shop. So that
where the Dauphine and then Queen went for her gowns
and her accessories, that was where everyone wanted to go. Yeah,
I mean Barton really had kind of become this huge
um business juggernaut in a way, because you know, and
(16:59):
we should I shouldn't I mischaracterized when I wrote in
the notes that it's like a small part of her business.
It was a huge part of her business. But she
was getting a lot of business on top of that.
So I mean millions of dollars in the very vague
equivalent of today's money being spent in this one millinery
shop on clothes by the royal class. Uh. And we
(17:23):
talked about Marie Antoinette becoming queen, and we should talk
about her coronation gown because it was quite something and
it was a batime creation. So traditionally, the clothing choices
for the male royals and attendance at a coronation ceremony
would be in a style which evoked no specific era
or style of dress. Of course, neither Murray Antoinette nor
(17:48):
Rose Bertant would agree to that idea at all. Yeah.
And additionally, I mean they kind of had this this
room to argue about it or argue their case. Because
a royal consort had not been part of a coronation
since Catherine de Medici in seven, there had been several
bachelor kings in a row on the French throne. So, uh,
(18:09):
there was more than a two hundred year long lag
since the last lady in Marie Antoinette's position, and there
wasn't a convention to follow based on that, and so
the Dauphine and her designer kind of took advantage of
that gap in protocol to go, all right, we're making
a huge gown and it's going to be ridiculous and wonderful.
The ridiculous and wonderful is right. The gown bertem made
(18:30):
for Marie Antoinette to where it was encrusted with jewels,
including many many sapphires, and also heavy embroidery has made
the garment enormously heavy. Uh. Dressmaker slash designer tried to
arrange a special carriage just to take it to the
soon to be clean Yeah. I don't know that she
was granted that wish. And Marie Antoinette was placed on
(18:52):
a special stand to view the ceremony. And I don't
know if you know, oad bearing issues were part of that.
Because of this gown, she couldn't really walk around in it. Yeah,
gowns of this era were already extremely heavy compared to
what we wear today. This would be extraordinarily heavy on
(19:13):
top of that already heavy, Yeah, I mean it would
not be. People probably have the image of the big,
wide hipped you know, the penny a U shaped gowns.
It's not uncommon for those to take twenty yards of fabric,
just because of the many layers and the the shape
of it is so wide, it's so on top of
(19:34):
the weight of twenty yards of fabric is the weight
of Heaven only knows the value of all of those
jewels and heavy like gold bouton embroidery, which is very
heavy on its own, and then underpinnings in case that
was not enough. Yes, so it was a significant achievement
in clothing engineering. I would even say so. As the
(19:59):
crowd followed Marie Antoinette in style, herten was able to
develop this rather ingenious way to just keep the money
flowing in. She would take the orders from the rest
of the royals for gowns that were similar to the
ones of the Queen war And as the Queen saw
more and more people dressed like her, she would get
tired of that and want something new and different. Yes,
so brit Town would design new styles for her Majesty.
(20:22):
You know, she also had a hand in in the hairstyle,
so there was lifting the hair higher, there was shifting
the drape of a skirt by bustling at all, a polonaise,
accenting with feathers, et cetera. And with each of these
changes that kind of updated the style, the masses would
follow and the Queen would again want something new. So
she kind of developed this perfect cycle of just continuous
(20:43):
orders planned obsolescence of royal clothing so smart it was
really an effective business model. Her shops stayed busy with
an array of clients wanting all the latest styles while
she simultaneously worked on fashions for the Queen that we're
going to become the next big style and ring the
same people right back to her for a wardrobe update.
(21:03):
And in France and particularly the Court of France at
the time, to be out of date on your style
was really an embarrassment and could really affect you socially,
which is ridiculous, but that's how it worked. Uh. And
Barton normally visited the Queen twice a week and she
would discuss new designs. She would review sketches and textiles.
They would talk about the styling and accessorizing that was
(21:25):
going to accompany individual looks. Uh. And so she really
became her stylist, and in many regards, even though there
were other people making clothes for the Queen as well.
If that can just blow your mind some more hundreds
of gowns a year um. But this level of access
to the Queen that Bartag had would normally be absolutely
unheard of for someone outside the royal circle. But Marie
(21:47):
Antoinet's obsession with fashion afforded the millinery these special privileges,
and it also earned bear Town the nickname Minister of Fashion.
Among Marie Antoinette's critics, she was really getting land based
in the press a lot as being the source of
waste or one of the purveyors of waste in the
the royal court. That she they had realized she had
(22:08):
figured out this wonderful way to keep money coming in constantly,
and that she was purposely kind of putting an expiration
date on everything by making similar copies of dresses. Uh,
and they they really kind of lampooned her in the press.
So it's important to remember that while Burton was benefiting
financially from her relationship with the Queen and the Queen's circle,
(22:31):
the real benefit was this so called protection that she
had been offered by so many of them. So, for example,
at one point one of Breton's relatives, who was a
widow making her living as a bookseller, was arrested for
selling pamphlets that satirized public officials in seventeen seventy three.
Her town was able to just call up all of
her friends among the royalty for help. So first her
(22:53):
relative was released from the Bestie, but at her sentencing
she was exiled from Paris for five years as a nishment,
and Barton continued to campaign on behalf of the bookseller
after this. This sentencing happened, and thanks to pressure from
Marie Antoinette and other ladies of the court, that sentence
was overturned a month after it was issued. So not
(23:15):
only did this woman wind up being freed, but then
she was invited to dine with the Queen, and she
became the court bookseller, which was a position that she
held until the Revolution ousted Louis the sixteenth from his seat.
(23:35):
And in another instance, during a royal procession through Paris
en route to an event which had many carriages in it,
the Queen, seeing Barton and her staff on the balcony
of the shop in rudissent Hore, acknowledged her dressmaker, which
is a huge honor for you know, a queen to
point you out and kind of nod to you in
one of these processions, and this resulted in every carriage
(23:58):
after that of the King and Queen also having to
acknowledge her. Apparently, Barton spent the day basically curteyed carriages,
and on at least two equate occasions, the Queen also
arranged for Barton to be led to a better seat
at the theater when she was when she realized that
her stylist was sitting in a less than stellar position
to enjoy the entertainment. So Breton had really achieved an
(24:22):
unprecedented level, like an unprecedented rise from her beginnings to
where she ended up once she had the favor of
the Queen, so to be granted these kinds of favor
favors and especially with this much regularity by those in
the highest positions of society, was quite an accomplishment for this,
you know girl from I'm Young. So other women such
(24:44):
as Madame Duberry, who we talked about earlier, had basically
slept their way to the top of French society. Breton
had used her entrepreneurial skill to get there. Yeah, which
really says quite a bit about her and supports the
idea of how very smart she was. Uh, and she
cemented her place as a milliner to the nobility. She
did have a little bit of uh, that thing that
(25:08):
often happens to people when they get famous really quickly.
She got a little bit of a superior attitude sometimes. Uh.
There are tales of her telling clients that she was
going to delay their orders because she and the queen
had decided that a style should not be debuted until later.
And she would sometimes shrug off customers of lower rank
by selling them fashions that were out of date, even
(25:30):
though wearing them would be social suicide. Like there's one
tale of a nobleman who is trying to get a
hat for a relative or a friend who is from
the country, and she's like, sell them on the last
month's hats. Yeah. So she really was just kind of
saying like, you're unimportant, I don't really care about you,
which is a terrible way to do business, but she
had so much she kind of felt like she could
(25:53):
make these, uh, less than ideal statements to people. She
also said to have responded to criticism from people that
by reminding them that her work was good enough for
the Queen. I personally have no problem with her saying this. Yeah,
it sounds like she was pretty petulant about it though,
where someone said, oh, you know this dress, uh, this
(26:16):
bodice isn't quite right, and she'd be like, it's good
enough with the Queen. Yeah, just kind of a snooty,
petuity way to do it. I can't understand it in
point of fact, but uh. She would also turn down
work for the wives of white collar workers, so like
if a lawyer's wife came to her, she'd be like,
I don't really need your business. Uh. This backfired on her, though,
because one of her employees uh set up shop for
(26:37):
herself and made a pretty good living catering to the
customers that Barton cast off, and they became rivals to
some degree, and after an altercation where the furious Barton
allegedly spat in the face of this former employee, there
was a dramatic legal battle. So her snobbery kind of
bit her on the tail. So Mademoiselle Pico, who was
(26:58):
the former employee, said that she was so shocked by
Britann's behavior that she passed out. Britang countered that she
had never behaved in such a manner. The initial judgment
found Bertag guilty, but she appealed, and at this point
the Queen intervened. So not only was the previous judgment overturned,
but Mademoiselle Pico was also ordered to pay the expenses
that were associated with the appeal. So yet another example
(27:21):
of where it was really good for Barton to have
all these friends in high places. So because of her
close association with the Queen and the Queen's circle, it
is probably no surprise that as the revolution shifted the
balance of power in France, it also shifted Barton's fortunes.
Even after the royal family was in custody of the
National Assembly, Burtang continued to deliver gowns to the Queen,
(27:44):
although they were much simpler than what she'd been making before,
and these deliveries, uh, it's worth pointing out, we're definitely
an act of devotion. So at the time, the Milliner,
having lost her social standing in large part, was also
having trouble collecting debts from other clients, and so even
though her finances were starting to crumble, she still clothed
(28:04):
the dethroned queen like she was still very appreciative of
their relationship. Once Marie An's, when it was executed, Pretend,
realizing that things were not going to go well for her,
fled to London. She set up a shop there and
catered to many of her previous patrons from France who
had also fled. She did return to France a couple
of years later, though, in but she had no career
(28:26):
at the level that she had once known to go
back to. Her name was associated still with Louis the
sixteenth the Mariantoinette, and the styles of dresses that she
really excelled at were no longer fashionable. Uh. The fashion
dolls that she had once made as miniature versions of
her fashion designs, which would be sent out sort of
as three D catalogs for people to see like it
was almost like if you picture a fashioned doll today
(28:49):
in a beautiful gown, and you would go, I want
that gown. Um. They became popular as collectible, so she
was still making those, and she was still making a living.
It wasn't like she was a pariah, but she is
really never able to return to the level of success
that she had known during Louis the sixteenth reign. Eventually,
Louie Nicolaubertin, who was Rose's nephew, was set up in
her old shop and he sold linen's and other fancy articles.
(29:14):
Rose still owned the shop, but she was mired in
ongoing efforts to settle all the old pre revolution debts,
and in the early eighteen hundreds, as she had gotten older,
Rose would occasionally still sell small orders to royals who
remembered her as a broker of the most elegant styles.
But these really served to kind of stroke her ego
more than they filled her pocketbook. While she struggled financially,
(29:37):
Rose also offered her services to old friends as favors.
She never really pressed them for payment. It's like all
of her wiles that she had used to make such
a huge fortune stopped being part of her her operating plan. Yeah. Uh,
you know, while she was at the height of her career,
(29:58):
really difficult and judgmental by some people's descriptions, she seemed
to soften a lot after the revolution took the wind
out of her sales, and I think she saw a
sort of camaraderie with these people that were in a
similar boat, of like, we had this life and now
everything has changed, and now we're kind of all in
this together, and let's take care of each other with dresses,
with beautiful clothes. Uh. Sadly, Rose died on September eighteen
(30:23):
thirteen in the village of Epinay, where she owned land
and spent her time away from Paris. She was sixty six,
and while she was certainly no longer famous the way
she had been in her heyday, her obituary did run
in numerous papers, and there were many kind remembrances written
about both her style and her generosity, particularly later in life,
(30:44):
although even before she became famous, people would talk about
how how sweet she was and how she was very kind.
So it seems like she kind of became a little
bit of a tyrant for a brief period when she
was super wildly popular, uh, and then that shifted back
to sort of her her more natural nature. Her two
nephew us Claude Charlemagne and Nicholas, and two nieces discovered
that there were still many uncollected debts that were owed
(31:06):
to bertin and so after she died they did manage
to recover some of that money for the estate, but
it took several decades. They really had to work quite
diligently to collect any of that money. In the introduction
to the biography that we referenced earlier by Emil Langelade,
he wrote, the reign of Marie Antoinette was one of
(31:28):
futility in Chiffon, and if the queen did not create
the office of a minister of fashion, the court of
Versailles was nevertheless always crowded with hair dressers, dressmakers, and
milliners who exercised more influence than the king's counselors. Rosebertown
was one of their numbers. Yeah, she definitely had a
huge impact on fashion and happenings of the day. I
(31:52):
mean it was more than close. She was making clothes,
but it was more than clothes, and I just kind
of love, you know, and he backed worry on fashion
designers well, and the first portion of the story that
basically going from nothing to being the primary dressmaker to
the queen reminds me of Don't Laugh the Katy Perry movie,
(32:13):
where we basically we basically learned that all of her
stylists and make up people and people making her dresses,
a lot of them are are people that she knew
from before she became really famous, and she kind of
brought them to mak her crazy outlandish clothing. And now
they have makers and entertainment. Now they have careers in entertainment.
Not not so much. You understand that that that connection,
(32:36):
you know. And I'm also quite fond of the Katy
Perry movie for reasons that are somewhat foreign to me
as not particularly a fan of Katy Perry. Yeah, I'm
in the same boat. That was a good movie. Tracy
got me to watch it, and it's not historical in
any way, but well, my friend Alice watched it and
was like, everyone should watch this because you just get
to see people genuinely love something that they're really excited
(32:59):
about for an hour and a half off And you know,
I am thankful to Alice every time I think about
Katie Perry. Thank you so much for joining us on
this Saturday. If you have heard an email address or
a Facebook you are l or something similar over the
(33:19):
course of today's episode, since it is from the archive
that might be out of date now, you can email
us at History podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
and you can find us all over social media at
missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show
on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app,
and wherever else you listen to podcasts. For more on
(33:43):
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com.
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