Christian Dior is a tortured soul. Earlier in The New Look, Christian struggled to work in Nazi-occupied Paris. Then, he struggled to find his creative voice under Lelong (I miss him already, by the way!), and as his sister’s fate was uncertain but certainly horrific. In episode six, he’s torn between his future — his own couture house — and his sister, CATHERINE!!, who has returned from Nazi imprisonment. Christian is also ridden with anxiety (he is sooo me), and as a result, is drawn to Madame Delahaye’s clairvoyance. But, being who he is, he’s still pulled in different directions: His heart and mind are split between practicality and the vague but promising visions of the future, though he’s leaning toward the latter.
This week, The New Look adds a new perspective despite the tight 36-minute run time — and, in doing so, continues its insistence on moving the story at the pace of a hamster on a wheel — to a bedridden Catherine, who suffers from amnesia caused by trauma. Because this is, first and foremost (at least till the episode’s final scene), a television program for boomers who regularly donate to PBS and NPR, the episode utilizes a done-before narrative device: PTSD as flashback. It’s not innovative, but it is effective. The more Catherine is exposed to, the more she remembers.
Hervé visits, which triggers memories of the day she was taken: She remembers sending Jean away and Hervé sending her out to send messages by bike. She blames herself for Jean’s execution. Despite the doctor ordering no visitors, Christina brings Madame Delahaye by, who successfully proves her validity by mentioning that Catherine held someone’s hand in a bathroom. While Catherine is stunned that Delahaye knows about the bathroom, she’s still dubious. After making calls asking to visit Catherine, a young man arrives, hoping to speak with her. He ignores Christian’s insistence to leave and takes Catherine, who recognizes him, to the gravesite of the five students, including Jean, who were executed for their involvement in the Resistance. He tells her that they ran an anti-Nazi publication out of his grandmother’s home, and that after his peers were executed and Catherine captured, he waited and waited for his inevitable fate to arrive. But it never did: The Nazis never came for him or his family, so after several days, he knew it was because Catherine didn’t give up his name despite the torture.
After the liberation of Paris in episode four, Coco shouts, “The rich and sexy always come out on top!†This line looms over The New Look, which is not subtle at all in contrasting the lives of the upper and lower classes. Elsa Lombardi makes a grand return after running into Coco at a lunch for the richest women in Switzerland, designed to connect Coco with clients so she can make money since she still does not have access to it and has not paid her bills at the hotel. Elsa’s presence is not a coincidence, though. Elsa, who has been outcast from her family in England because of her involvement in Coco’s Nazi espionage, blackmails her. If Coco doesn’t pay Elsa the money she was promised for their tryst in Madrid, she will expose her. Coco doesn’t take Elsa — despite what she knows — seriously because of her less-reserved, loud personality, which is showcased in her ambitious, slightly wacky for-the-time wardrobe (she wears an embellished tie in a pattern that matches her waistcoat, while Coco wears a classic black-and-white-trimmed jacket with her signature layered pearls). Elsa — who, in case you forgot, was married to and therefore protected by a high-ranking member of the Italian Fascist Party — describes her life as “absolute torture†in a scene sandwiched between scenes of Catherine Dior actually getting tortured. I must take a moment to acknowledge Emily Mortimer’s performance as Elsa, which can only be described as “freaking it.†It’s a muppet-level (complimentary) performance. She watched Billy Crudup on The Morning Show and took notes.
At the end of last week’s episode, Coco Chanel promised war, but, similar to Christian, she gets a second chance, albeit an unearned one. This war is filled with mind games and … well, it is kinky. Coco’s uninhibited cruelty extends to Elsa and the staff at the hotel where she is not paying to live large; and her business partner, Pierre Wertheimer, gleefully joins her selfish war by hosting a party at the hotel she is not paying for and invites everyone except Coco, allowing Elsa to gloat. Coco dines alone in the empty — save for a table of seniors — but not quiet restaurant, the sounds of the party drowning her mind, probably racing with antisemitic insults to throw at Pierre. Pierre (Charles Berling) leaves his own party to speak with her, and the dynamic shifts: Pierre is one of the few people who makes Coco uneasy, and we have seen her dine with high-ranking Third Reich officers. Every other time Coco has faced consequences for her actions, her power, wealth, and connection to Churchill put her at ease. But she loses control in the presence of Pierre, one of the masterminds behind the success of the house of Chanel. “Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you,†he says, in a sequence filled with insults and dialogue in a tone that, upon rewatch, sets up what happens next. Pierre, mirroring Elsa earlier in the series, suggests that Coco takes too much credit for Chanel. He accuses her of giving the impression that she’s the mind behind its business success, adding that the house never would have become a success without his business savvy. Coco, who throws a book at him, shouts, “That’s all you people are good at! All you are is money!†She’s not exactly proving she did not willingly collaborate with Nazis.
I cannot lie: When Coco Chanel opened the door to the hotel room she was not paying for, I assumed Claes Bang’s Spatz was behind it. My jaw dropped when it was Pierre. And then my jaw dropped through all the floors of my apartment building when Juliette Binoche, as Nazi Coco Chanel, began to dom her Jewish business partner, who she had recently thrown a book at after shouting, “All you are is money!†Binoche is incredible in this episode, as she successfully dares you to believe this is really happening: Despite what she’s done and said, Coco’s charisma (and Binoche’s electricity) makes it make sense. The rich and sexy always come out on top literally, figuratively, and, apparently, in the bedroom.
Christian opens the episode making soup in his dimly lit kitchen (once again, he is so me, as I am also a hater of light). Christian struggles to nurture Catherine back to health and nurture his couture house. “I never would have made a leap if I had known she would return,†he tells Jacques. Who is he lying to here: himself or to Jacques? Out of shame, he took this leap because a fortune teller told him that if he pursued his own fashion house, Catherine would return. He’s struggling with his belief that he is to blame for Catherine’s capture and imprisonment, and with his growing belief in superstition.
Monsieur Baccarat, who has invested a record-high amount in Christian’s vision, is impatient and eager to build the house of Dior. Before finding tailors, seamstresses, models, and staff, they need to find a location, which is vital. Rather than showing up for an appointment to view a location for his couture house, Christian accompanies Catherine and the student instead. Catherine weeps with Christian as she remembers everything, including that he was with her, holding her hand all along, proving Madame Delahaye’s vision true. This spurs his belief in second chances: for postwar France, for himself, for Catherine, for the house of Dior. With a sense of relief — as much as someone like Christian can have — his ambition returns, and he’s ready to move forward and change fashion forever.
It’s fitting and most definitely not a coincidence (capitalism at its best!) that this week’s Catherine-centric episode coincides with Dior’s Paris Fashion Week show. In the fall 2024 ready-to-wear collection, creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri paid homage to former creative director Marc Bohan’s Miss Dior subcollection. Launched in 1967, the collection made the house of Dior appealing to a younger audience and, thus, fulfilled Christian Dior’s vision of making clothing for every woman. Several pieces in Chiuri’s collection — including a trench coat, skirts, and a suit jacket — have large Miss Dior branding on display in black graffiti-style text against the definitively Dior cinched waist.
The episode closes with a Beabadoobee (this name fills me with Christian Dior–level anxiety) cover of “It’s Only a Paper Moon,†whose original title was the title of this episode, “If You Believed in Me.†The song, which had a revival after World War II with popular recordings by Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald, certainly reflects Christian’s superstition state (But it wouldn’t be make-believe/If you believed in me).
I’m not going to say I hope Claes Bang comes back next week, because then he won’t. Look at that: Christian’s superstition is affecting me. What I will say is that it looks like by next week, the hamster will hop off the wheel, out of its glass cage, and onto the streets of Paris, allowing the New Look narrative to move forward as the house of Dior finds its home at 30 Avenue Montaigne.