Even in the 18th Century, shoes made the woman! ““Marie Antoinette” is very much a girlish fantasy-every frame filled with beautiful flowers, enormous cakes, silk and tassles,” says Director Sofia Coppola-but she forgot to mention that most important of all fashion accessories- shoes. Marie Antoinette was mad for them, as any true fashionista would be-and owned hundreds of pairs.

Superstar shoe designer Manolo Blahnik, whose shoes Madonna famously quipped are “better than sex”, was tapped to design the many shoes in the movie. “When I was a little boy, my mother used to read to me and my sister pages of Marie Antoinette’s biography. I for one, I find her so inspiring. She died so badly, to pay for her sins. Yes she spent money that she shouldn’t, but she was young and bored,” says the designer.

Movie buff Blahnik started his homework by studying original 18th-century shoes in Paris. The Victoria and Albert museum in London gave him footwear that belonged to the French queen. “So I did some kind of a cross between academic and a little bit of fantasy,” he says. But then, his shoes - especially the film’s, a collection of candy-colored heels embellished with ribbon and buttons and beads - are a fantasy.

Though he’s one of the most recognizable name in shoes (and who’s ever had Kirsten Dunst in their closet?), he was shocked at the play his confections received in the film. “I didn’t expect it,” he said. “I thought, under those big dresses you would see a glimpse, but the camera lingers for a moment on the shoes, and the ladies of the court are looking at the shoes, and it’s quite extraordinary how they captured it. I’m very, very pleased actually; it was a challenge for me, but I was very surprised.”

Below, find some really great shoes from then and now- a few pairs that survived the Revolution, plus some contemporary confections that we are certain would have charmed the fashionable Queen.