I have always found Marie Antoinette inspiring but I must say that Sophia Coppola’s interpretation has helped me understand how her style can be modernised and become more appropriate to wear today.
I tried a hairstyle inspired by ones in the 2007 film for my party last weekend and was asked to do a tutorial so here it is!
First of all, as most of you know I have thin, bleached hair so it is probably more malleable than most hair. If you have thick hair you might need more product to achieve this look. It also might help if you leave your hair unwashed for a couple of days.
You will need:
- A comb (suitable for backcombing)
- a bottle of hairspray (the brand or type is irrelevant but strong is probably good)
- hair pins
- curling tongues
- 2 mirrors
Start with you hair down and your comb in your hand. I know some people use lice combs for backcombing, I think just a standard plastic fine toothed comb is the best. Also please forgive the lack of eyebrows, I draw them on so I actually look a bit like an alien in the morning.
Start on the crown of your head a basically backcomb a large section in the middle of your head, giving as much volume as possible. I advise spraying with hairspray both before and after. If you have soft hair spraying before hand with help you backcomb more effectively and help the section stick together.
This should give you a large backcombed section that looks kind of like this with straight hair all around the outside.
Next, take the remaining hair, a section at a time and backcomb and spray it. In some cases it might be helpful to curl each section first. I did this on my first attempt at this style but then realised it wasn’t necessary for my hair.
The objective is to get your hair to easily form a little curl which you can then pin to the backcombed body of hair.
They should look something like this to start with. If you curl them them might be a bit more wavy.
After you’ve done a few it should look something like this.
To do the back, I moved into the bathroom where I could use two mirrors to see what I was doing properly.
I started sectioning, spraying, curling and pinning the back of my hair.
Take care to pin lightly so the hairstyle still looks light and puffy.
At the end I left two small sections to curl into ringlets.
Side view
Top view
Back view.
On one side I have a shaved patch so I just put a curl over it.
And this is what it looks like from the front.
I’m particularly pleased with this style because it does resemble hairstyles worn by Marie Antoinette without requiring a hair piece, extensions of a wig. I’ve seen loads of people buy Marie Antoinette inspired wigs that look terrible as soon as you get them home and this is a cheap and more effective alternative.
If you have dark coloured hair it might be a good idea to use some white hairspray for this style. I liked the colour of my hair as it is for this one but I use white hair spray quite a lot. I love the dusty effect it leaves on the hair, which is in fact quite reminiscent of the powdered look of 18th century wigs.
I know my pictures aren’t fantastic but hopefully they still show the process accurately and clearly. If in doubt, use more hair spray and I’d love to see pics if anyone else tries this.
I’ll try and do it for a shoot and get some better pics at some point!
