Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche play the two fashion icons during the Occupation in “The New Look”, the new prestige series from Apple TV+.
What is it about ?
In Paris, under the Nazi Occupation, while Coco Chanel’s reign over fashion comes to an end, Christian Dior is the rising star who revives the world with his revolutionary and iconic style, influencing generations of yesterday and of today.
The New Look, a series created by Todd A. Kessler with Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche, Maisie Williams, John Malkovitch…
Who is it with?
New prestige production from Apple TV+, The New Look is the first solo series from Todd A. Kessler. He distinguished himself in the past with Damages and Bloodline which he co-created with Glenn Kessler (his brother) and Daniel Zelman.
And it was Ben Mendelsohn that he chose to play Christian Dior after having already worked with him on Bloodline. We discovered the French designer before he had made a name for himself. He works for Lucien Lelong, played by John Malkovitch. They continued their haute couture activity despite the Nazi occupation, a truly difficult choice but also a necessity for “survive” as Christian Dior said during a masterclass at the Sorbonne in 1955.
If he continues to work, it is also to cover the activities of his sister Catherine, played by Maisie Williams. The former Game of Thrones actress is almost unrecognizable in this role of a resistance fighter who will experience the hell of the German camps.
Alongside the Dior family, we follow the setbacks of Coco Gabrielle to whom Juliette Binoche gives all the strength of her character and her art. It is not the genius designer who interests Todd Kessler here, but rather the cornered woman who ended up collaborating with the Nazis to save her skin and her business.
She begins an affair with Spatz – played by the manipulative Claes Bang – a Nazi spy responsible for seducing her for his address book and his contacts, notably with Winston Churchill!
Other familiar faces run through the series. We thus come across Hugo Becker, Zabou Breitman, Emily Mortimer and even Glenn Close.
Apple TV+ Ben Mendelsohn as Christian Dior
A double biopic
More than a simple biopic which would focus on recounting the rise of Christian Dior, The New Look paints the portrait of two creators who do not react at all in the same way to the Nazi occupation in France.
From the outset, the tone is set. From the first two minutes, Coco Chanel appears with a cigarette in her hand and ammunition in her mouth. During a press conference in 1955, where the journalists were only interested in Christian Dior, her colleague who was 22 years younger and whose popularity was growing, Chanel fired live bullets at Dior. Qualifying it among other things as “nervous wreck, hiding from the world, constantly unhappy“…
In real life, Chanel’s insults were even more virulent. Before World War II, she helped liberate women by creating clothing that was both beautiful and functional. Non-corseted models which allowed those who wore them to be more free in their movements.
Conversely, the silhouette introduced by Dior in 1947 was more severe – tightly cinched waist, structured shoulders and high heels – and was dubbed “the new look”, hence the title of the Apple TV+ series. For Chanel, it was a step backwards that proved even more painful when her designs became popular.
Apple TV+
Claes Bang (“Spatz”) and Juliette Binoche (“Coco Chanel”)
Two people who are completely opposed
But that’s not the point of the series which is really focused on the characters – creation takes second place – and the decisions they made during the occupation. Chanel is then portrayed in her worst light.
She allows herself to be seduced by Spatz, a Nazi officer commissioned to seduce her and he takes advantage of her legal conflict with his Jewish associates to convince her to collaborate so that she can get her business back…
At a ball to which she is invited, and where swastika flags abound, a senior Nazi official takes Chanel aside and says to her in a threatening tone: “Once you have completed our task, your Jewish partners will no longer have any rights to your business.“
Conversely, Christian Dior is portrayed as a delicate, shy, unassertive person. He is an almost erased man, still living in the shadow of himself. Desperate to see his little sister risk her life when she joined the Resistance, he barely dares to tell her how much he is sick every time he sees her go off on her bike to deliver her messages.
He does everything possible to find her and get her out of the clutches of the Germans when she is arrested by the Gestapo, while continuing to create evening dresses for the wives of German officers who cross the threshold of the Lelong house.
Apple TV+
Maisie Williams as Catherine Dior
An American series
Intended mainly for the American market, The New Look is entirely filmed in English with the rather disconcerting feature that everyone takes a French accent… If this choice of language can be understood for the commercial issues of the platform, it remains surprising at a glance. era where multilingual works are increasingly common.
The mini-series Cristóbal Balenciaga on Disney+ tells the life and career of the famous Spanish fashion designer – he is also a secondary character in The New Look – and chooses both Spanish and French.
These linguistic considerations aside, The New Look stands out for the quality of its production and its elegant style. Its strong point is to give substance to these names, Dior and Chanel, which appear in the windows of the most beautiful avenues in the world without us thinking about the real people who have each contributed in their own way to changing the world. of fashion.
The first three episodes of The New Look are available on Apple TV+ and MyCanal, followed by one episode per week.