Marie Antoinette (from the film “Marie Antoinette”). Even the smallpox vaccine gave the idea for a new hairstyle
During the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette everything was tending to Versailles, even the most serious things, and any excuse was good to invent new fashions to follow , both in terms of clothing and hairstyles.
For a while, the ladies showed off absurd hairstyles , bordering on the ridiculous (localhost / prova / 6548 / modern-history / a-sailing-ship-on-the-head-of-marie-antoinette), the idea of which often arose from contingent facts, concerning the news and society. / P>
This even happened when Louis XVI, wishing to be the first to set an example, voluntarily underwent the inoculation of the smallpox vaccine (an important and courageous initiative, since vaccination was then in its first trials and smallpox continued to claim numerous victims, including illustrious ones, as it had been for Louis XV ); it was then that the ladies found nothing better to do than comb their hair à la inoculation.
The new and extravagant hairstyle consisted of collecting the hair by placing the ancient emblem of medicine on the head, namely the staff of Aesculapius with a coiled snake and a rising sun around it , which together were to symbolize the triumph of science over disease.
A somewhat kitsch fashion but completely normal in Versailles.