FASHION IS CIVILIZATION. 4/4: Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution Hardcover – by Anne Higonnet (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 July 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Equality-Fashion-Styled-Revolution/dp/0393867951
Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt. Together, Joséphine and Térézia shed the underwear cages and massive, rigid garments that women had been obliged to wear for centuries. They slipped into light, mobile dresses, cropped their hair short, wrapped themselves in shawls, and championed the handbag. Juliette made the new style stand for individual liberty.
The erotic audacity of these fashion revolutionaries conquered Europe, starting with Napoleon. Everywhere a fashion magazine could reach, women imitated the news coming from Paris. It was the fastest and most total change in clothing history. Two centuries ahead of its time, it was rolled back after only a decade by misogynist rumors of obscene extravagance.
New evidence allows the real fashion revolution to be told. This is a story for our time: of a revolution that demanded universal human rights, of self-creation, of women empowering each other, and of transcendent glamor
120+ full color illustrations throughout
1805 JOSEPHINE
Transcript
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| 1:00.0 | I'm John Matthew Professor Anne Higone. |
| 1:03.0 | Her new book is Liberty, Equality Fashion, the women who style the French Revolution. |
| 1:08.0 | And the dresses we're talking about in the styles are available online. Anne and her |
| 1:15.4 | colleagues and her students make it available. They were at the Morgan. And Ann, there's a joy in your |
| 1:23.5 | book because the journal that you've rediscovered for us was always there at the morgan but we |
| 1:30.6 | couldn't find it what what what was the secret allowed you to find it like a detective well |
| 1:37.3 | the fashion plates which were the rarest in the world because you know things, things get lost during a revolution, had been |
| 1:46.1 | cataloged in a quirky way. So they were sort of caught between two different departments |
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