Le cabinet de la garde-robe of Louis XVI at Versailles

The last masterpiece of interior design created at Versailles before the Revolution, this tiny wardrobe, reached by way of the alcove in the king's private bedroom, is one of the rare projects completed for Louis XVI.

Created under the direction of the Queen's architect, Richard Mique, in 1788, the boiseries are the work of the celebrated Rousseau brothers.  The bronzes on the fireplace - which is original to the room - are by Gouthière.

Discretely concealed within the paneling is a cabinet de chaise.

Commode en bas d'armoire by Adam Weisweiler, part of the original décor.

A detail of the carved and gilded paneling.

Two coronations, two sisters - retouched and un-

The recently widowed Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, dressed for the coronation of her son, Tsar Nicholas II, in 1896.

A rare unretouched photograph of the Dowager Empress at forty-eight.

And then retouched....

Detail of one of the versions of the below painting.

The Coronation of Nicholas II, by Laurits Tuxen, 1898.  The painting captures the moment in the ceremony
when a shaft of light dramatically struck the crown of the Dowager Empress.

Her sister, Queen Alexandra, dressed for the coronation of her husband, Edward VII, and her own, in 1902.

An unretouched photograph of Queen Alexandra at fifty-seven.

And heavily retouched....

The Crowning of Queen Alexandra, by Laurits Tuxen, 1904.

Queen Alexandra in her coronation gown and robes, by Sir Luke Fildes, 1905.  (The artist has added the Garter riband and badge,
which the queen did not wear during the coronation.)

Three small boys by Sargent

Lancelot Allen, 1894.

Gordon Fairchild, 1890.

Caspar Goodrich, 1887.

Bride, circa 1850

Margot Asquith, by de László, 1909

Margot Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (February 2, 1864, Peeblesshire – July 28, 1945, London), born Emma Alice Margaret Tennant, Anglo-Scottish socialite, author, and famous wit.  She was married to Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916, and was well known in her own right for her often outrageous outspokenness and her acid tongue.

Philip de László, see here.

Certainly never the conventional beauty or timid dresser.  A portrait by Cecil Beaton.

Le génie du coiffeur polonais - Antoine de Paris

Arletty in the operetta Xantho chez les Courtisanes, photograph by Boris Lipnitzki, 1932.

(Interesting that his fingers and wrists have been retouched to make them more slender.)

Elsa Schiaparelli, photograph by Man Ray, circa 1933.

Opera singer and actress Françoise Rosay, 1932.

Joséphine Baker, 1933.

Antoni "Antek" Cierplikowski (24 December 1884, Sieradz, Poland - 5 July 1976, Sieradz, Poland), known as Monsieur Antoine and, professionally, as Antoine de Paris, considered the world's first modern celebrity hairdresser. Born in one of the oldest cities in Poland, he learned to dress hair from an uncle in nearby Łódź. He moved to Paris in 1901 and began work in the salon at the Galeries Lafayette, moving with his fashionable clientele to Deauville for the summers. After much success and with ever increasing celebrity, he opened the Antoine de Paris salon at 5 rue Cambon in 1911. Little more than a decade later, he had a salon in New York City, eventually owning sixty-seven salons in Europe and America. He dressed the hair of crowned heads and many of the world's most famous women, while living quite a grand and eccentric lifestyle, himself.

Photograph by Man Ray, 1933.

Antoine is credited with, among other things: bobbed hair, the perm, hair lacquer, blond streaks, and the blue or lilac tinting of gray or white hair; in this last he was abetted by his famous client, interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl, who made the "blue rinse" into a popular and long lasting vogue. He was also known for his outrageous lacquered wigs, which were popular among performers and European "fashionistas" during the early Thirties.

Joséphine Baker, 1933. (Four images.)

Elsa Schiaparelli, two photographs by Man Ray, circa 1933.

Arletty, in the operetta Xantho chez les courtisanes, photograph by madame d'Ora, 1933.

Brigitte Helm in L'Atlantide, 1932. (Two images.)

He was always quite adept at self-promotion. And like any smart modern entrepreneur, he marketed his own hair products and cosmetics, and trained young hairdressers in his methods and employed them in his salons. 

 Some of the packaging from his line of beauty products.

In Hollywood, with a most unlikely Bette Davis, 1933. (Two images.)

Actress Frances Dee, 1933.

Three fantasy wigs.

Photograph by Brassaï.

 

Ear clips by Boivin, photograph by Hoyningen-Heune, Vogue, 1934.

Twinned highlights of his career came when he supervised - along with a cadre of his skilled hairdressers - the mass coiffing of court ladies at both the 1937 and 1953 British coronations. By the Sixties, though, his star had been eclipsed by a new breed of hairdressers - many of whom he'd trained - and he slipped into relative obscurity. In 1973, he returned to his hometown in Poland - then still a Soviet satellite - where three years later he died at the age of ninety-one.

Of note is the flawless toenail varnish. 

His grave in Sieradz, Poland, his birthplace.

*

The Honorable Mrs. Reginald (Daisy) Fellowes, gown by Schiaparelli, photograph by Horst, Vogue, 1935.

Elsa Schiaparelli, photograph by Man Ray, circa 1933.

Life mask of Dolores Wilkinson and Boucheron bracelet, photograph by Hoyningen-Heune, 1932.