Opening on 20 September 2025, Marie Antoinette: Style and Splendour will be the UK’s first exhibition solely focused on the iconic monarch’s fashion and legacy, and will run until 22 March 2026.
Among the star attractions are a natural pearl and diamond pendant that fetched $36 million at auction in 2018, and a double-ribbon diamond bow brooch—both believed to have been smuggled out of France during the Revolution. Another highlight is the historically significant Sutherland necklace, composed of 20 large old brilliant-cut diamonds—some of them Type IIa Golconda stones—long associated with Marie Antoinette and the infamous Affair of the Diamond Necklace.
The Sutherland necklace is thought to include diamonds from the original Boehmer and Bassenge creation—a lavish commission from King Louis XV for his mistress Madame du Barry in 1772. Though the King died before its completion, the necklace later became the centrepiece of an elaborate fraud in 1785. Though Marie Antoinette had declined the necklace for being too ostentatious and had no part in the scandal, public perception linked her to the affair, worsening already growing unrest that would culminate in the French Revolution.
A replica of the original Boehmer and Bassenge necklace will also be displayed, alongside the Sutherland diamonds, which were acquired by the V&A in 2022 through an inheritance tax arrangement with British aristocracy.
The exhibition will feature around 250 objects, including never-before-seen loans from the Château de Versailles and other French institutions. Visitors can expect to see Marie Antoinette’s silk slippers, intricately embroidered court dress fragments, and other personal effects that offer a rare glimpse into the queen’s opulent world—and the legacy of style she left behind.
The V&A promises a revelatory experience, charting the rise and fall of one of history’s most controversial royal figures through the lens of fashion, politics, and myth.
