'Marie Antoinette' Season 2 Costumes Take A Backseat to Drama in Its Later Episodes

The two penultimate episodes of Marie Antoinette’s second season don’t feature much novelty in the costumes. However, what they lack in that area, they make up for in pure drama, thanks to Cardinal Rohan’s great-aunt, Madame de Rohan-Soubise, and Ol’ Sourpuss himself, King Louis’s brother, Provence.

In “Hated, Humbled, and Mortified”, Mme. de Rohan-Soubise arrives at the courthouse exuding Goth Granny Vibes, courtesy of the little capelet she’s wearing atop her black-and-gold gown and fussy little black ribbon choker. The capelet is lightweight, in variegated shades of pale-to-dark brown, just covering her shoulders to the top of her bodice. From some angles, it looks like fur, but from others, it seems to be feathered. Did Europe’s most glamorous pheasants give their literal tail feathers? Is it vintage ocelot? I like to imagine it’s both.

Regardless, the materials and her overall aesthetic suggest it’s made to be worn for both warmth and style, approximately 40 years before anything anyone else is wearing. This is a woman committed to her look and not in the habit of reconsidering any opinion she has ever held. Mme. de Rohan-Soubise is lodged in my mind as a cross between Iris Apfel and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.