Galerie des Modes: Vintage French Fashion Prints of Marie Antoinette

Step into fashionable Paris before the French Revolution with these stunning hand-coloured fashion plates from Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français. Published between 1778 and 1787, these elegant illustrations capture the extravagant dresses, elaborate hairstyles and stylish accessories that made French fashion the envy of Europe.

Long before fashion magazines, influencers, and online trends, fashionable Parisians kept up with the latest styles through beautifully illustrated fashion plates.

Published between 1778 and 1787, Galerie des Modes et Costumes Français is one of the most important fashion publications ever produced. The hand-coloured engravings capture French fashion during the final years of the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, preserving everything from elegant silk gowns and embroidered coats to towering hairstyles and wonderfully extravagant hats.

Galerie des Modes Title Page

What Is Galerie des Modes?

The title translates roughly as Gallery of French Fashions and Costumes Drawn from Life. Unlike costume books that imagined historical dress, these illustrations aimed to record the fashions people were actually wearing in Paris at the time.

The result is a fascinating snapshot of everyday life in eighteenth-century France. Some outfits look surprisingly modern, while others are delightfully over-the-top.

Today, Galerie des Modes is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential fashion publications. The plates helped popularise the fashion illustration and inspired many of the fashion magazines that followed.

More than two centuries later, they remain just as captivating. Beyond the beautiful clothes, they offer a glimpse into a world of promenades, theatres, salons and social occasions just before the French Revolution changed France forever.

The Paul Cornu Edition

The images featured here come from the magnificent 1912 edition compiled by Paul Cornu. By tracking down and reproducing hundreds of the original fashion plates, Cornu helped preserve this remarkable record of French style for future generations.

How To Download The Fashion Prints

All of the illustrations below are in the public domain and free to download.

Click on the title above your chosen image to open the high-resolution version in a new tab. You can then save, print or use the artwork in your own creative projects.

Vintage French Fashion Prints 1774-1778

Print 1: Polish Style Yellow Dress

In the Polish style, of striped taffeta, gauze trim, putting on her stockings and showing off her beautiful leg.

Vintage French Fashion Woman bending to adjust a yellow shoe, wearing a striped golden gown with white ruffles and a tall feathered hat, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

2. Winter Polish Dress

Polish, with pocket and tassel, or Winter Polish. These dresses are very narrow in front and leave the small jacket free, trimmed at its centre and crowned by a wide pleat.

Woman in a pink and white ruffled dress with a tall feathered hat, holding flowers and a small fan outdoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

3. Polish Open Dress

Polish woman with open breasts, stapled in the middle of the waist, with wings developed in front, and a tail that spreads out behind.

Woman in a red striped gown with white apron ruffles and a high feathered hairstyle, standing outdoors with a muff, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

4. Demi-Polish

Demi-Polish. It is a kind of diminutive of those skirt bottoms which the Ladies of the Court, obliged by etiquette to appear in public in the morning, have long adopted and which have been applied quite successfully to new fashions.

Woman in a white skirt with red and green bodice, colorful hat, and walking stick, posed in a garden landscape, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

6. Milliner

A character figure representing a milliner, carrying merchandise in the city. “A large black taffeta cape, with upturned edges trimmed in gauze, covers her head and conceals some of her charms from the eager glances of passersby; but her cape is tailored so as not to reveal any of the elegance of her figure.“

Fashion vendor in a blue and gold skirt with black shawl and oversized bonnet, carrying a small box on a cobbled street, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

7. Governess with Child

Woman in a grey and pink dress guiding a small child on a terrace, both in formal 18th century dress, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

8. A Grand French Style Gown

Elegant woman in a full pink gown with white ruffles, green garlands, feathered hat, and fan by a stone column, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

9. Young Lady From Circassia

Woman seen from behind in a blue gown trimmed with gold, tall feathered hat, and small dog at her feet, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

10. A Cook

A cook newly arrived from the provinces, who is beginning to adopt the elegant manner of Paris.

Servant woman in brown skirt, white apron, head wrap, and blue shoes carrying a chair across a tiled floor, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

11. The Caraco

French-style open dress.

Woman viewed from behind in a yellow gown with blue trim and tall sculpted hairstyle, holding a cane outdoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

12. Lady With Young Abbot

A large, open-bodied gown, trimmed with a medium-sized facing, made of pink taffeta.

Courtly woman in a lavender floral gown and towering hat greeting a bowing gentleman in a garden, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

13. Indian Taffeta Dress

Little dress of striped Indian taffeta, trimmed in striped gauze pouffe; pagoda sleeves.

14. Nightwear Reclining on Sofa

In a taffeta gown with a jacket awaiting either a bath or a rendezvous.

Seated woman in a pale grey dress and green ribboned bonnet reclining on a red and gold sofa, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

15. Young Man in Tailcoat

A dapper young man, in a tailcoat with small patches, a cut-off collar (1) with buttonholes; sheath sleeves with heart-shaped buttonholes.

Gentleman in green coat, black tricorn hat, cream breeches, and walking cane standing in a landscape, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

Vintage French Fashion 1779

16. Taffeta Mantlet

The mantlet is a kind of small cloak or light drapery, intended to cover the upper body; it is excluded from the grand attire, and yet it has gained so much favour that it has become customary to regard it as an essential part of the clothing of Ladies.

Woman in a pink and green trimmed dress with tall floral headdress, holding a long walking stick outdoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

17. Blue Dress and Bonnet

Woman in a blue gown with white ruffles, pink feathered hat, fan, and walking cane on a garden path, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

18. Circassian Dress

Woman in Circassian dress, seen from the front.

Woman in a peach and blue floral-trimmed gown with large feathered headdress and fan, seated near a tree, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

19. Dressing Gown

The illustration depicts a young lady in a dressing gown with a high collar and closed sleeves, trimmed with gathered Indian muslin; the collar is trimmed with a simple turned-up band. With a pet parrot.

Seated woman in a pale blue gown with coral trim reading beside a perch with a green parrot, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

20. Gentleman in Yellow Coat

Gentleman in orange coat, black hat, grey breeches, and white stockings standing with arms crossed outdoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

21. Lady in Dressing Gown

Woman seated at a dressing table in a white robe and mustard skirt, holding a paper beside a mirror, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

22. Seamstress and Apprentice

Woman in a green and striped gown fanning a young girl in blue lace dress on a tiled floor, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

23. The Pelisse

The pelisse is a type of winter coat that ladies throw over their shoulders to protect themselves from the harshness of the season. There are two kinds: plain and fur-lined.

Woman in a green cloak over an orange skirt with fur muff and ribboned cap standing outdoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

24. Woman In Black Lace Mantilla

Woman in a black lace mantilla and pink striped skirt leaning beside a stone plinth in a garden, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

Vintage French Fashion 1780

25. Blue Floral Dress

Woman in a blue and floral dress with towering white turban and small dog at her feet in a landscape, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

26. Pale Floral Gown

27. Ball Gown

Ball gown. The bodice and skirt are of the same fabric and colour. This skirt is gathered up with tassels at the sides, slightly towards the back, and unevenly at the front near the pockets: this reveals a second skirt of a different colour, trimmed with a striped gauze flounce, adorned at the top with a garland of flowers, held up by bands of flowers and sequins.

Woman in a white apron over a blue and red gown with tall feathered hair, standing on a tiled floor with flowers, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

28. Hairdresser

Hairdresser in a red jacket styling a seated woman in a yellow skirt and white robe on a patterned floor, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

29. Lady Washing Feet

Lady seated in a rose gown while a maid washes her foot in a basin, with shoes on the floor nearby, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

30. Lady & Gentleman

Woman in a yellow dress seated beneath a tree while a gentleman in blue and brown presents a ribbon or cloth, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

31. The Abbot

“The hairstyle of this young poet is a half-Greek style, with two circular curls, the sideburn tucked in front of the ear; the back of his head is adorned with a shiny, domed cap, called a lamppost cap; it is of a very beautiful black tortoiseshell, or at least coconut.”

Seated gentleman in a dark coat reading a paper on a red chair against a tiled interior floor, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

Vintage French Fashion 1781-1782

32. Orange Gown

“One should not wear these dresses with too elegant a hairstyle; the one in the picture consists of a medium-sized bonnet with peasant-style curls, made of Italian gauze, pulled far back; the high, open top, with two loops falling very low, and on the bonnet, a wide, plain ribbon, but pinched.”

Woman in an orange gown with white cap, fan, and small dog on a leash standing in a garden, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

33. Woman in Turquoise

The caption at the bottom of this engraving states that the caraco originated in Nantes, Brittany, where bourgeois women wore it during the Duke of Aiguillon’s visit in 1768.

Woman in a turquoise and white ruffled gown with grey turbaned headdress holding a walking stick, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

34. Women in Yellow Gown

Woman in an elaborate yellow gown with purple trim and high floral hairstyle standing on a terrace, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

35. Woman in Grey with Parasol

Versailles-style dress: it was in Versailles that these dresses first appeared. The name of the place where they originated became their name.

Woman from behind in a grey and green dress carrying a parasol and walking stick, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

36. Woman in Pink

The Queen’s Dress: This dress has the dual advantage of being able to be worn trailing or gathered up, at the will of the wearer and at the time they desire; two drawstrings on either side, indicated by two rosettes and adorned with two tassels, achieve this effect; by pulling one tassel, the dress rises, as it appears in the image; by pulling the other tassel, it lowers and becomes flowing; this change is made in an instant.

Woman viewed from behind in a mauve pink gown with green underskirt and ribboned cap, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

Vintage French Fashion 1783-1785

37. Woman in Green

English-style dress: True English-style dresses have small, flat pleats at the back, stopped at the waist, and barely reach the ground: this is how ladies wear them in England.

Woman in a green gown with white ruffles, floral garlands, long train, and high feathered hairstyle holding a small fan, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

38. Pink Dress

Circassian Amadis dress, very elegant: the bodice is closed with a trim all around, higher at the back than at the front, forming a turned-down Medici collar.

39. French Ceremonial Dress

He is dressed in French-style ceremonial attire, with the blue ribbon of Saint Louis worn across his chest; the cross of the same order on his chest; and, around his neck, suspended from a dark red cord, the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Breeches and coat of cherry velvet embroidered with gold; jacket of gold fabric embroidered with the same metal; shoes with square gold buckles; French-style tricorn hat.

Duke in a red suit with gold waistcoat, blue sash, tricorn hat, and sword standing on a tiled floor, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

Vintage French Fashion 1785-1787

40. Nobleman in Pink

41. Blue Hoop Gown

Lady in a grand blue hoop gown with white ruffles, floral headdress, and fan standing on a patterned rug, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

42. Military Officer

The Count of Artois, in his uniform as Colonel of the Artois Dragoons.

Military officer in green coat, blue sash, plumed hat, and boots holding a cane with a small child nearby, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

43. Full Green Gown

The Countess of Artois.

Woman in a full green gown with white lace ruffles and feathered headdress standing indoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

44. Dress Fitting

With a corset.

Dressmaker or tailor fitting a woman in a white gown, with a man in red waistcoat adjusting the bodice, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

45. Purple Dress

Woman seen from behind in a purple and grey gown with green sash, carrying a walking stick or crook, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

46. Blue Dress Towering Headwear

“This beautiful woman, abandoned by her husband, resorts to the healing flask, which her doctor gave her, to banish the vapours.”

47. Women In Pink Coat

Demi-Parure, or winter negligee. This costume is highly sought after by ladies when they have to go out in the morning, whether to run errands or for some other reason. It consists of a fur coat casually draped over an elegant bedcoat.

Woman in a pink fur-trimmed cloak over a yellow skirt, wearing a large bonnet and carrying a muff, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

48. Woman on Chaisse Longue

“A young, imprudent woman who has become a mother. It is called imprudent because she leaves one breast exposed, which a good muslin kerchief should protect from the elements. This costume can be classified as a morning negligee.”

Woman reclining on a striped chaise longue in a yellow, pink, and white dress with a red turban, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

49. Pale Gown

“A casual polonaise: these dresses are simply fastened at the bust like regular polonaises, are not gathered at the waist, have long wings, and a very short train.”

Woman in a pale floral gown with green sash, tall lace headdress, and letter in hand standing outdoors, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

50. Green Striped Gown

Woman in a green striped gown with pink bows, white ruffles, and floral headdress holding a closed fan, French Galerie des Modes fashion print 18th century costume illustration

51. Blue Gown

More Vintage Fashion and Design Inspiration

I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the fashionable world of eighteenth-century Paris. These charming fashion plates may be over 240 years old, but the colours, details and sheer creativity still feel remarkably fresh.

If you love vintage fashion illustrations, you might also enjoy my collection of Paul Poiret fashion prints. Created more than a century after Galerie des Modes, Poiret’s bold Art Nouveau and Art Deco-inspired designs show just how dramatically fashion changed while remaining every bit as stylish.

For more historical costumes, take a look at my collection of vintage paper dolls, which includes beautiful outfits from different periods and countries, including several elegant French fashions.

Fashion and textiles have always gone hand in hand, so you may also enjoy browsing these vintage kimono patterns from Japan. Their decorative motifs, colours and textile designs offer a fascinating contrast to the fashionable Parisian styles featured here.

And if it’s the patterns rather than the clothing that catch your eye, don’t miss my collection of vintage floral textile designs. Many of the prints would look just as at home on a dress fabric today as they did when they were first created.

If you fancy, you can Buy Me A Coffee Here.