Let Them Wear Peachy Den
What Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette Has to Say About Influencers
Written by Audrey Westby
“ Serving cunt and its consequences” -- Letterboxd user @maiapog
Recently a beloved influencer of mine—the kind you follow for years and grow alongside in a parasocial way—posted a reel in that plaid Peachy Den exercise suit noting that she felt the need to ‘treat herself.’ A snarky commenter responded: ‘if Peachy Den is your treat yourself, then we are in different tax brackets.’ To be clear, I don’t think the influencer or the follower is at fault. The influencer may be slightly out of touch, yes, but not“ billionaire out of touch”. We’re all on this platform together, endlessly consuming and creating and consuming like lambs to the slaughter or aristocrats to the guillotine.
Recently I’ve been thinking about Marie Antoinette a lot. In September Manolo Blahnik released a Marie Antoinette collection of gaudy thousand-dollar heels and the Victoria & Albert museum opened their Marie Antoinette Style exhibit (featuring her iconic wardrobe). Vogue reported that the exhibit reframes the queen“ for the TikTok era.” I’d argue Sofia Coppola laid the groundwork for the Tik-Tok-ification of the queen way back in 2006 when she released her biopic of the royal figure. Given the ‘like political and economic state of the world right now,’ I think it's a great time to revisit the film. So I watched it with my phone in one hand.
Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is a masterwork as gaudy as Versailles itself. It paints a portrait of a young Marie (portrayed by the always luminous Kristen Dunst) who is shipped from Austria as a teen to the stuffy, rotten world of Versailles where she must learn and obey their many customs. She is the all-important queen of France, but she never really grows past teen girlhood. Her interests lie in fashion, food, frolicking with friends and locking eyes with cute boys across ornate ballrooms. Underscoring the overflowing bodices, mile-high wigs, and perfectly pink pastries, is a plucky pop punk score (Strokes, New Order, The Cure, etc.) to remind us that this is distinctly Coppola’s imagining of Marie Antoinette. Sofia Coppola is a filmmaker figurehead for girlhood, and she wants us to know that this wicked and enduring historical figure is first and foremost‘ just’ a girl.
Watching the film I am struck by the detailing of everything Marie indulges herself in: many-tiered cakes, champagne in crystal coupe glasses, large feathered headpieces, droopy diamond earrings, heels encrusted with furs and bows and jewels, gold-dusted candies. The film production itself was a site of mass consumption. It was Coppola’s blank check film; she was given 4o million dollars to do whatever she wanted, and she spent it on unprecedented access to Versailles and perhaps the most ambitious costume-work in film history. Milena Canonero, who won an Oscar for the film, created 170 costumes for the set, a hundred of those that were just for Kristen Dunst. Manolo Blahnik himself designed the queen’s shoes at Coppola’s request, a request she was likely able to make due to her own royal status as white Hollywood’s princess.
As I watch Kristen Dunst gush over shoes and dresses and wigs, I am reminded of the hours upon hours of content I watch of other gorgeous women gushing and giggling over similarly frivolous delights. They review new products, fawn over incredibly niche collaborations between high and low fashion brands or celebrities and your favorite children’s book character: Miffy x Baggu, Emma Chamberlain x Warby Parker, Clairo x Catbird, Lisa Says Gah x Apple Doll. These are all words that sound like complete gibberish when I repeat them to my boyfriend, dropping hints for birthday or Christmas gifts.
Perhaps the piece of content that most reminds me of Marie Antoinette is a YouTube staple: the PR haul. In between writing emails and online window shopping I watch my favorite YouTuber point the camera down to the free packages she has received from brands, hoping for a moment in the spotlight. There are boxes upon boxes of perfume, bikinis, socks, candle holders, matching sweatsuits, silk pillowcases, all overflowing her doorway, blocking her exit. Some of the boxes are printed with pop art designs vying for her attention amongst the others’ dull brown. If I, a plebeian, were to pay for the same product it would not come with a specialized hand written note:“ For Audrey <3”.
In her zeitgeist-defining essay collection You Have a New Memory, Aiden Arata writes about experiencing the influencer’s side of this digital exchange. She reports on the time she spent in a group chat with other content creators to collaborate on maximizing their potential so that they may receive PR packages and free trips. She knowingly explains that influencers are the“ power traders of the attention economy.” The influencers in the chat ruthlessly seek after goods of all kinds, from polyester clothing to vitamins purported to make your hair grow. But, to receive and pedal the gifts, they must play by the rule book. For one, they are required to supply at least three quality brand contacts a week to remain in the chat. Then, there is the much more opaque demand to appease the all-mighty algorithm, an algorithm which will ruthlessly favor newness, peppiness, youthful beauty and a perpetual performance of opening presents on Christmas morning. Like the tragic figure of Marie Antoinette, the influencer is both to blame and not to blame for her materialism. She is the algorithm’s pawn and its master.
Coppola’s film feels relevant to our influencer era in more ways than one. The movie is defined by a dream-like sense of impending doom. The viewer knows that the unfettered consumerism on screen represents an ominous march towards an inevitable and bloody decline. (Feel familiar?) Still, poor Marie has no idea what’s coming. In between garment fittings and royal dinners, we see Marie’s faithful servant try to warn her of the gravity of France’s situation but, due to their power imbalance, he can never do more than futilely baby-talk his attempts at guidance. Meanwhile, outside of Versailles the queen’s face (not the king’s) is becoming the ultimate symbol of corruption, despite the fact that she has no formal political power. Coppola tries to set the record straight; she makes a point of having Kristen Dunst deny ever saying the infamous line,“ let them eat cake.” But she’s much too late. Marie Antoinette will forever be an icon.
Like the queen, the influencer today is the poster child for mass consumerism. You don’t have to Google for long to come across a myriad of opinion pieces on how influencers are poisoning the minds of the youth. Unlike the queen, the influencer is also the teacher. The project of the influencer, after all, is to get their followers to buy the dress—and we do, the version without Manolo Blahniks to pair with it. The difference between Marie Antoinette’s world and ours is that hyper consumerism is diluted across the masses. We’re all drowning in boxes; most of them are just a dull brown.
