It’s impossible to imagine a world without the New Look. French designer Christian Dior’s signature hourglass silhouette, introduced with his first haute-couture collection in 1947, transcends time and defines it, cherishes femininity and subverts it. Dior’s clothes cinch but do not bind the waist and were considered rebellious not only for fitting so close to the body but for their postwar extravagance. While structured and dramatic, his sublime work is as still, soft, and delicate as a flower — Christian’s favorite, lily of the valley, is seen in the opening credit sequence, which weaves bloody war imagery with sewing, fabric, and flowers. Eight decades later, Dior remains a powerhouse and innovator in fashion, beauty, and culture while still embodying the house Christian Dior built in the aftermath of World War II. The House of Dior, now owned by French luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH, has employed some of the greatest minds in fashion history, including Yves Saint Laurent and John Galliano. Its current creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, is the first woman to take on the role. The faces of Dior — from Marlene Dietrich to Natalie Portman to Charlize Theron — embody the classic, spirited woman who first inspired Christian Dior.
Apple TV+’s The New Look (evidently, its latest entry into boomer content for the masses; see: Masters of the Air) follows the rise of Christian Dior, focusing on Christian’s relationship with his sister, Catherine. It’s also a series that dares to portray Gabrielle “Coco†Chanel as she was: a voluntary Nazi collaborator. The first three episodes — all recapped here in one big blog — document Christian’s years living and working in Paris during its Nazi occupation. The series calls itself “inspired by true events†since it certainly takes some liberties, as much of Catherine Dior’s life from this period is not well-documented. Before the series starts, a title card explains, “This is the story of how creation helped return spirit and life to the world.â€
Episode one begins in the future-past: It’s 1955, and Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn, an unexpected yet clever casting) is being honored at Sorbonne University. Dior, who is known for his superstitious mind, hesitates to do the lecture as he gets the Death card during a tarot reading. Meanwhile, Coco Chanel — played with an unapologetic, mean edge by the incomparable Juliette Binoche — tells a room of press that she “does not care†about other fashion designers. “They bore me. Always have,†she says before talking shit about Dior, which the designer was known to do. “He knows he doesn’t deserve his praise.†The House of Chanel, founded in 1910, revolutionized women’s fashion by introducing simple designs and straight silhouettes, often accessorized with long pearl necklaces. Dior’s ultrafeminine and theatrical aesthetic was antithetical to Chanel’s sporty, androgynous, casual-chic aesthetic. This contrast is evident in Karen Muller Serreau’s costume design: Coco’s tweed black-and-white suit appears somewhat stuffy and dated in contrast with the fashion show at Sorbonne, which features Dior’s iconic looks from the Soirée d’Asie dress to the Bar Suit, which sets a pleasant tone for a show that’s about to spend three episodes in the Nazi occupation of France. Dior finally appears in front of the students. “All I ever wanted to do is design the most beautiful women’s clothing that ever existed,†he says. Mendelsohn speaks as if he’s had a French accent his whole life. A student asks if it’s true that he designed for Nazis during World War II, while Chanel closed down her house, refusing to design for Nazis. He says yes but adds a caveat that is, conveniently and exquisitely, the thesis of the first three episodes of The New Look. “There is the truth, but there is always another truth that lives behind it,†he says, hinting at the layers to his role in designing during the Nazi occupation and at Chanel’s now well-documented involvement with Nazi operations.
Seamlessly (pun intended), the show zooms back to 1943, three years into the Nazi occupation. On the streets of Paris, a young woman, played by Maisie Williams, gets into an altercation with a Nazi officer over a lack of papers. The woman runs away, leading the officers into a trap. Her colleagues, fellow rebels, kill the officers. The woman takes her French resistance boyfriend, Hervé (Hugo Becker), and their colleague Jean (Noé Besin), a student, to an apartment, which is revealed to be Christian Dior’s. And the woman played by Williams — who, in her post–Game of Thrones years, has become a high-fashion muse herself, wearing avant-garde brands including Iris van Herpen — is, as it turns out, Dior’s sister, Catherine Dior. Although the casting might seem a tad offbeat given the obvious age difference between Williams and Mendelsohn, Christian and Catherine had a 12-year age difference (shown in a flashback to Catherine’s infancy) but were incredibly close. Catherine was a constant source of inspiration for Christian throughout his life and career, which will undoubtedly unfold in later episodes. The house’s signature perfume, Miss Dior, is said to be named after Catherine (Natalie Portman has been the face of Miss Dior since 2011). The Dior family grew up well-off in Normandy and eventually moved to Paris; their father was a wealthy fertilizer manufacturer.
Dior’s apartment is grand but dark and scarcely furnished and decorated, a sign of the times. Christian works alongside another soon-to-be fashion legend, Pierre Balmain, as a designer for Lucien Lelong (played by John Malkovich in a wig, who’s doing as much accent work as Shailene Woodley in Ferrari, which is actually a compliment coming from me), who has them designing ball gowns. To protect his designers, a perpetually on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown Lelong does not tell Dior and Balmain who they’re designing for, but they know. The only women wearing ball gowns in Paris in 1943 are the wives and girlfriends of Nazis. The designers join Cristóbal Balenciaga at a café to discuss the complications. Dior seems to see it as a means to survival, but it’s more black and white for Balmain and Balenciaga. Balenciaga, whose own line was established in 1919, shares that he and Chanel were asked to design for the Nazis, but both refused. He insists that despite the rumors, Chanel vehemently refused to work with them. But why does she live at the Ritz? they wonder.
In contrast, Coco Chanel’s life under Nazi occupation is quite grand. She lives in a decadent suite at the Ritz, rich in light and color, and gallivants all over town as if nothing has changed. Thirty miles outside of Paris, Chanel and Baron Louis de Vaufreland pick up her nephew, André, a Nazi prisoner. The pickup was prearranged and is used as leverage for Hans von Dincklage (Claes Bang), known as “Spatz,†to get Chanel working for the cause (in real life, these two were boyfriend/girlfriend). Although Binoche expertly plays Chanel as baffled and confused by what’s going on, she’s quite willing and at ease dining with Heinrich Himmler (Thure Lindhardt) at Maxim’s, a legendary Paris restaurant established in 1893. Last year, it reopened its doors to the public. If you must know, Barbra Streisand held a premiere party for Yentl there in 1984. Motivated by a resentment for the Wertheimers, her Jewish business partners who fled France before the occupation and likely by her desire for power and comfort as well as her attraction to Spatz, the chatty Chanel is quite agreeable and freely gives the Nazis information, including her (former) closeness to British prime minister Winston Churchill, which, in episode two, sends her on a mission to Madrid. Here’s the thing: if you’re going to make a Nazi romance make sense, cast Claes Bang, one of the most magnetic, attractive actors working today. Today, Chanel is still privately owned by the Wertheimers, with headquarters in London.
Jean is captured and tortured by the Nazis, along with other students in the French Resistance. Dior makes excuses to avoid seeing a Nazi girlfriend who makes multiple requests to see him personally, unwilling to work directly with such a client. But on the evening of the ball, a distressed Lelong visits Dior’s apartment, saying he must visit the client in person because there’s a tear in the dress. If Dior doesn’t go, Lelong worries there will be dire consequences. Dior arrives at the ball. All along, the Nazi girlfriend wanted to see Dior to warn him that they’re onto Catherine, who knows her from school. Dior leaves the ball in a rush. On his way out, he sees Coco Chanel smiling and laughing with Spatz and Walter Schellenberg (Jannis Niewöhner). But it’s too late. Catherine is captured by the Gestapo, and Jean and the students are executed by the Nazis. At Sorbonne in 1955, Dior says, “That’s all there is … the longing for survival. For me, creation was survival.â€
In episode two, the Winston Churchill peace-negotiation mission adds Chanel’s former friend Elsa Lombardi into the mix. As the energetic, candid Lombardi, Emily Mortimer brings a Billy Crudup in The Morning Show energy to the show that livens up the dark tone. A muppet energy, if you will (complimentary, of course). More accurately a frenemy, Elsa is taken straight from a bath in Italy to Paris, where she is dumbfounded to discover that the Gestapo follows orders from Chanel. They travel to Madrid together by train under the guise that they will open a boutique there, with Chanel implying that Elsa will get money and return to her home in the U.K. The mission is a flop, and Elsa sees right through Chanel. Churchill is not in Madrid, and Elsa tells the British embassy about Chanel’s involvement with Nazi espionage before Chanel has her say. Chanel is in over her head, inexperienced in this kind of work, but culpable at the same time. In this scene, Binoche brilliantly plays Chanel’s uninspiring punching down of her involvement. She unconvincingly suggests ignorance. Chanel downplays her involvement in the Nazi cause — even downplaying Spatz being German — as a way to communicate to others but, most likely, to herself that this is not as bad as it is. Coco Chanel might be ignorant in some regard, but it’s willful. This reflects Elsa’s assertion that her “truest talent†is “believing your own story.â€
Dior spends episodes two and three desperately searching for Catherine, who is tortured at The House, a Nazi detention house in Paris. After witnessing her torture, a woman working at The House uncuffs Catherine, advising her to refuse to give away any information but to stay strong so she is sent to a camp rather than getting killed. Catherine realizes the woman is French. “I’m nothing now,†she says. The woman hopes that helping Catherine will save her in death, knowing her country will never forgive her. Catherine listens and is put on a train to a camp in Germany.
With some help from Lelong, who apologizes for the burden of designing for Nazi-adjacent women, Dior discovers that Catherine is, indeed, on a train headed to a camp. In order for a pickup at Bar le Duc station to work, Dior begs Hervé and the Resistance to hold off on bombing train tracks. But again, it’s too late. The Resistance successfully bombs tracks, so Catherine’s train does not stop, though she hears her brother crying out for her at the station. She’s sent to Ravensbrück, a women’s camp in Germany. Dior weeps in Lelong’s arms, and my Ben Mendelsohn Emmy campaign begins.
By episode three, the Allies are approaching Paris, which is in chaos. Nazis prepare to leave, and the Resistance prepares for revenge. In Germany, Catherine is stripped of her belongings and her hair cut to the scalp at the prison camp. Dior’s fight to find her continues. Hervé suggests a bribe, so Dior goes to the only connection he has: the Nazi girlfriend who warned him about Catherine. The boyfriend, Franz, can make arrangements, but the bribe must be high for the risk. Dior goes to Balenciaga, who can’t offer much. “All that is left is a few bits of fabric,†he says. They share a chocolate bar, and Balenciaga attempts to lift his friend’s spirits. This meeting gives Dior an idea: steal luxe fabric made rare in wartime from Lelong to use as a bribe. His plan goes more smoothly than expected: Lelong catches him. Instead of firing him, he offers more fabric. But Franz is not satisfied with the fabric, despite Dior’s insistence on its value. Franz is killed, and Dior is hopeless until Balenciaga arranges for him to meet Chanel on a night filled with chaos.
Chanel is equally desperate. As a favor, Pierre Reverdy (Sagamore Stévenin) informs her that her name is on a list of Nazi collaborators. The only way to save herself is by giving him a name, which she initially says she can’t do. “I’ve done nothing,†she says, once again denying her culpability to others and herself. Chanel is resistant to betray Spatz until a trip to Berlin for a strange meeting with Schellenberg, who informs her that Spatz is happily married and he was tasked with recruiting elite French women. She meets Spatz where he’s hiding at a convent. They sleep together and make plans to meet and escape France together. By the time the Resistance arrives to arrest him, he’s gone. Chanel is distraught: She’s still on the list but is more upset by Spatz’s betrayal.
Dior visits Chanel in her suite at the Ritz. She’s more broken down than ever. He begs her to help him negotiate his sister’s freedom. He knows she has a contact. But she says it’s impossible now, which leads to the revelation that Chanel has given the baron’s name to the Resistance in order to save herself. “Find a better dream, one that you can fulfill,†Chanel tells him. Their pain — one relatable and one painful to watch — permeates. No crumbs left by Binoche and Mendelsohn. This is acting!
The next day, blue skies. Paris is free. Outside a Chanel boutique, Coco Chanel throws bottles of Chanel No. 5 perfume to soldiers parading through the streets of Paris. “For your girlfriends and wives,†she shouts as if she’s innocent. “France loves you!†Meanwhile, Dior — incapable of celebrating a victory without Catherine — closes the windows of his apartment and sits alone in the dark, longing for survival.
With the Nazi occupation over, what’s next for Mr. (and Ms.) Dior? Will there be consequences for Coco Chanel? Until next week.
Loose Threads
• The series’ soundtrack is produced by Jack Antonoff (what isn’t he producing these days, geez). Episode one closed with a Florence + the Machine cover of “There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover,†a popular World War II song made famous by Vera Lynn. Episode two closes with a Matt Healy cover of “Now Is the Hour,†and episode three with Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Skies.â€
• If you’re intrigued by the true events as portrayed in episodes one to three of The New Look, I recommend the books Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War (2011), by Hal Vaughan and Miss Dior: A Wartime Story of Courage and Couture (2021), by Justine Picardie.