Staged in the Discovery Lab, as part of London Fashion Week, the Autumn/Winter 2019 presentation of Nabil Nayal was a fully immersive performance that drew inspiration from the popular character of Queen Marie Antoinette.

The collection, entitled 'Let Them Revolt' (as a reference to 'let them eat cake', the controversial words attributed to the French queen), is a collaboration with The School of Historical Dress, founded in 2009 by dress historian Jenny Tiramani, and it explores accurate eighteenth-century artefacts under the filter of talented Nabil Nayal.

The 'chemise à la reine', for example, a long finely woven white shirt-dress which Marie Antoinette made quite popular at her time, is here revisited, becoming one of the best pieces of the collection. I was indeed quite intrigued by it and finally decided to sketch this look during the presentation.