La Poésie France, 1790.

𝗜𝗜𝗜. Trends
Louis XIV notably introduced one of the most noticeable feature of the men's costume of the time: immense wigs of curled hair. A commonly held belief is that Louis XIV started to wear wigs due to balding, and to imitate this his courtiers put on false hair. The wearing of wigs lasted for over a century; they went through many changes, but they were never quite so exaggerated as during this period. Despite the rise of la mode during Louis XIV's reign, many of the clothes he wore did not survive or were taken from the monarchy's possession. Much like the Crown Jewels, a French king did not actually own any of his clothes. They belonged to the Garde-robe du roi (King's Wardrobe), which dated back to the 16th century. Due to Louis XIV's changes to the King's Wardrobe, officers had a right to the clothes once the monarch died, as long as they would not be used by the king's successo. Furthermore, although the Louis XIV's formal clothing would change along with the rest of la mode, his ceremonial clothing did not, and remained with tradition. The king also used fashion to create a certain effect or theme. During the marriage of his great grandson Louis, Duke of Burgundy to Princess Marie Adélaïde, the French entourage dressed in bright colors and fashions to contrast with the more soberly dressed Spanish. This was in order to seem younger and more virile than the Spanish courtiers.
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𝗜𝗜. Fashion in royal portraits
Over his lifetime, Louis commissioned numerous works of art to portray himself, among them over 300 formal portraits. The earliest portrayals of Louis already followed the pictorial conventions of the day in depicting the child king as the majestically royal incarnation of France. This idealisation of the monarch continued in later works, which avoided depictions of the effect of the smallpox that Louis contracted in 1647. In the 1660s, Louis began to be shown as a Roman emperor, the god Apollo, or Alexander the Great, as can be seen in many works of Charles Le Brun, such as sculpture, paintings, and the decor of major monuments. The depiction of the King in this manner focused on allegorical or mythological attributes, instead of attempting to produce a true likeness. As Louis aged, so too did the manner in which he was depicted. Nonetheless, there was still a disparity between realistic representation and the demands of royal propaganda. There is no better illustration of this than in Hyacinthe Rigaud's frequently-reproduced Portrait of Louis XIV of 1701, in which a 63-year-old Louis appears to stand on a set of unnaturally young legs. In 1680, Louis began to be portrayed directly rather than in a mythological setting. This began the "fashion portraits", which were prints that depicted the King wearing the notable fashions of the season. These prints were also largely unofficial, which meant printers were unaffiliated with the Crown. They largely went unchallenged by authorities, however, as long as they portrayed the King in a positive light. Those who did portray the King satirically or with the use of caricature faced imprisonment. Rigaud's portrait exemplified the height of royal portraiture in Louis's reign. Although Rigaud crafted a credible likeness of Louis, the portrait was neither meant as an exercise in realism nor to explore Louis's personal character. Certainly, Rigaud was concerned with detail and depicted the King's costume with great precision, down to his shoe buckle. However, Rigaud's intention was to glorify the monarchy. Rigaud's original, now housed in the Louvre, was originally meant as a gift to Louis's grandson, Philip V of Spain. However, Louis was so pleased with the work that he kept the original and commissioned a copy to be sent to his grandson. That became the first of many copies, both in full and half-length formats, to be made by Rigaud, often with the help of his assistants. The portrait also became a model for French royal and imperial portraiture down to the time of Charles X over a century later. In his work, Rigaud proclaims Louis's exalted royal status through his elegant stance and haughty expression, the royal regalia and throne, rich ceremonial fleur-de-lys robes, as well as the upright column in the background, which, together with the draperies, serves to frame this image of majesty.

𝗜. Fashion prints
The association of France with fashion and style "la mode" widely credited as beginning during the reign of Louis XIV when the luxury goods industries in France came increasingly under royal control and the French royal court became, arguably, the arbiter of taste and style in Europe. The rise in prominence of French fashion was linked to the creation of the fashion press in the early 1670s (due in large part to Jean Donneau de Visé), which transformed the fashion industry by marketing designs to a broad public outside the French court and by popularizing notions such as the fashion "season" and changing styles. The prints were usually 14.25 X 9.5 and depicted a man or woman of quality wearing the latest fashions. They were usually shown head to toe, but with no individuality or defined facial features. Sometimes the figure would be depicted from behind in order to showcase a different side of the clothing. Although the individual in the prints was often crudely sketched, the garment itself was impeccably drawn and detailed. Accessories to the garment also received nuanced attention. Louis XIV, although later hailed as a patron of fashion, did not actually have a large role in its spread and proliferation which was due to the fashion prints. The fashion prints were ubiquitous, but Louis XIV neither sponsored nor hindered their production and proliferation, and largely stayed out of it unless the prints of himself specifically were treasonous, satirical, or caricatures.

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The noisy street was sceaming around me. Long, slender, in great mourning, majestic pain, A woman passed, with a sumptuous hand Lifting, swinging the festoon and the hem Agile and noble, with his statue leg. Me, I drank, tense like an extravagant, In his eye, a livid sky where the hurricane germinates, The sweetness that fascinates and the pleasure that kills. Lightning then night! Fugitive beauty Whose gaze suddenly made me reborn,
Will I only see you in eternity? Elsewhere, very far from here ! too late ! never maybe! Because I do not know where you are fleeing, you do not know where I am going, oh you whom I would have loved, oh you who knew it!
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In the violent flash of your divine face, Being only a mortal man, your celestial beauty made Me taste death, death and ruin To come again to immortality. Your divine fire burned my mortal essence, Your heavenly captivated me and ravished me in Heaven, Your soul was divine and mine was such: Goddess, you placed me among the other gods. My mouth dared to touch the crimson mouth To pluck, without death, immortal beauty, I lived on nectar, I sucked ambrosia, Savoring the sweetest of divinity. In the eyes of the jealous Gods, filled with frenzy, I have smoking altars like other gods, And for me, secret God, blushes jealousy When my unknown star disguised the Heavens. Even a counterfeit God, refused with his mouth, Avenges his impotent wrath with hammers, While I plucked the kiss and the layer And the fifth fruit of the sweetest nectar.These envious blinded humans make war on me, Raising the ladder against the sky, they have climbed, But from my paradise I despise their land And the sky is nothing to me at the cost of your beauty.
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