An outsider in the French Court, Marie Antoinette relied on Bertin's meticulous designs to help her "combat her enemies with style". Marie Antoinette's unique fashion preferences such as masculine riding breeches or simple muslin shift dresses, contrasted sharply with elaborate gowns as the Queen attempted to create a persona that would allow the citizens of France to connect with her and her lifestyle. Although Marie Antoinette's attempts were largely unsuccessful, the way in which Bertin helped the Queen express herself through fashion were groundbreaking and set a precedent for the monarchs who followed, and their designers, such as Louis Hippolyte Leroy. And by the early 19th century, designers such as Ann Margaret Lanchester and Mary Ann Bell were expanding their businesses, and publishing their own designs in fashion magazines. In the first half of the 19th-century fashionable Parisian designers, such as Madame Vignon, Madame Victorine and Madame Palmyre, normally did not independently design a product which their clients could choose to buy, but rather created the product in collaboration with their clients wishes, to produce something unique.