
Sofia Coppola’s cult-biopic “Marie Antoinette” will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a retrospective at Versailles later this month.
Coppola? Marie Antoinette? Versailles? Say no more, Christian Siriano’s in.
Or at least it appeared that way at his show inside the Cunard building, New York’s Renaissance-inspired answer to the Hall of Mirrors.
Asked during a preview if he was a fan of the film, Siriano reacted in shock — as if someone couldn’t be. “Oh my god, I love that movie. I watched it too much, actually. The clothes are insane. It didn’t even make sense. It’s so great.”
While “Marie Antoinette” wasn’t the genesis of his collection — an 18th-century French fairy tale, “The Story of the Queen of the Flowery Isles,” was — there were similarities between Coppola’s anachronistic storytelling and Siriano’s Rococo-redux.
Besides overlapping historically, “The Story of the Queen of the Flower Isles” and the guillotined queen are both lessons in destructive vanity that end in tragedy. But Siriano flipped the script, beginning with sinister all-black looks in laser-cut leather and ending with a trio of ditzier drop-waist circle skirts in vintage tapestry fabrics that he reproduced.
Siriano also reproduced pieces of Christian Lacroix costume jewelry, which he styled throughout alongside genuine baubles sourced from Parisian flea markets.
Hence the anachronism: it all felt very 1880s-by-way-of-the-1980s with Lacroix’s signature “poufs” popping up on gowns in hues of chartreuse and shocking pink, corseted everything, and squared-off tailoring (the two eras certainly share a love of comical proportions).
While python spandex and a tulle face shield were a bit too much, Siriano’s direct-to-consumer business is thriving and they buy off the runway. Thursday’s front row proved it. “I really want these people to have something fabulous to wear,” he said. “That’s important.”







