Empress Sisi was Austria’s most famous empress and, while it’s impossible to know for sure, we’re pretty confident she would have been a big fan of Instagram. During her lifetime, she posed for many portraits, took great care of her appearance and always kept up with the latest fashions. Today, these three aspects would almost certainly bag her 1 million Instagram followers in a matter of days.
But what type of photos and videos would the empress share with her huge following? We dived into her life and came up with eight different subjects which would definitely have appeared on her Instagram grid. #EmpressSisi!
Emil Rabending [Public domain]
The staple for almost every Instagram user today, selfies would have undoubtedly made regular appearances on Empress Sisi’s profile. The most famous portrait of her is a painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter which depicts her in an extravagant white ball gown, with a simple fan in her hand and dazzling diamond stars glistening in her beautiful brown hair. This seems like the type of image the empress would have as her profile picture and the very first shot she’d upload to Instagram.
Empress Sisi was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women of her time and to keep up her stunning appearance, she employed some normal and not-so-normal methods, including:
We imagine Sisi’s followers would be constantly asking how she keeps her skin looking so healthy and youthful. And we bet she’d be only too happy to answer their questions by posting photos of her employing her beauty treatments and explaining them in the captions.
Sisi spent just as much time and effort on making sure her hair was always in tip-top condition. Her hair was staggeringly long and every two weeks, the hair that would touch the ground when she sat on a chair would be washed with a special shampoo made of eggs and cognac. Washing this select part of her hair almost took all day to achieve! Simply preparing her hair each day took her staff a minimum of three hours. But, ever keen to on self-improvement, Sisi never wasted this time and used these spare hours to learn foreign languages and study poetry.
The elaborate hairstyle of weaving braids over the top of the head into a tiara was created by Sisi and we think she would have posted photos and videos, showing her fans how to mimic the design. Assuming these posts would be as popular as you think, Sisi would continue to post hair tutorial images and videos to inspire her followers.
Keeping in shape was another aspect that dominated Empress Sisi’s life. All her palaces contained state-of-the-art gym equipment which she would use to practice gymnastics every day. She had rings hanging in doorways that she would pull herself up with, horizontal bars for balancing and vaulting, and climbing frames in each of her residential abodes.
Since exercise what such a huge part of her lifestyle, it’s almost certain that she would post images of her working out and doing gymnastics on Instagram. Again, no doubt her followers would want to know how she stayed so fit and healthy, so we imagine she’d post workout video tutorials showing her fans her moves.
Emil Rabending [Public domain]
Even though Empress Sisi was already extremely slender, she made her waist appear even smaller through the practice of “tight-lacing”. To do this, she had rigid, solid-front corsets made out of leather in Paris (a total contrast to the split-busk types with hook and eye fasteners at the front that most women wore at the time) that would be extremely tightly laced up with cords. It would take her staff up to one hour to lace her corset and it would be thrown away after a few weeks, when the leather gave way under the strain.
Sisi was always very proud of her appearance and would have loved to show it and her style off with outfits of the day posts. In them, she would primarily be wearing corsets and cage hooped skirts, when they originally were in fashion. As the skirt style changed to a tighter and leaner silhouette, Sisi would have undoubtedly followed suit and changed her look on Instagram, too.
Sadly, after marrying Emperor Franz Joseph I, Empress Sisi had a rather unhappy family life. She was at constant war with her mother-in-law who wouldn’t let Sisi bring up her own children. To make up for it, we imagine she would have many photos taken of her when she did get to spend some time with her children which she’s want to share with the world on Instagram.
As well as being the Empress of Austria, Sisi was also the Queen of Hungary. Sisi much prefered Hungary over Austria and spent a lot of her time there enjoying its more relaxed environment. Since she loved the country so much, we imagine she would take countless photos during her visits and share them with her followers, telling them about her favourite cafes, restaurants and places to visit.
Following the death of her only son, Sisi completely withdrew from court duties and travelled extensively on her own. In 1890, she commissioned a palace to be built in Corfu, a place she truly loved and visited as often as she could. Being in such a gorgeous location, it would be impossible for her not to take photos of the golden beaches and share them on Instagram, especially on #TravelTuesday!