At a time when the world turned ugly, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel were determined to introduce something beautiful – fashion.
In “The New Look,” actors Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche play the two and reveal what inspired and drove them to become the brands that still thrive today.
“What we’re experiencing in the story is two extraordinary individuals and how they survived, the choices they made and what happened after France was liberated,” says creator Todd A. Kessler. “The experience of it is they’re all in the same crucible.”
While Nazi ties color the story, “The New Look” offers information most didn’t know until testimony at the Nuremberg trials was opened somewhere around 1987.
Juliette Binoche plays Coco Chanel in "The New Look."
Making connections
For Binoche, the AppleTV+ series was a chance to get to know more about the woman she plays. “The complexity of that character I find fascinating,” she says. “The show allowed me to go into and develop a passion for her because she is so complex.”
In addition to her relationships with artists, aristocrats, Germans and the Resistance, “The New Look” details how revolutionary she was. “She got rid of the corsets, made the dresses a little shorter and cut her hair,” Binoche says. “She brought pants wearing (into vogue) and she changed women’s behavior during the first war because women had to be the active ones. Men were at war with the Germans. She took that occasion to really make a big movement. That’s why, at the beginning of the second war, she stopped everything.
Ben Mendelsohn plays Christian Dior in "The New Look."
Dior, Mendelsohn says, had a burning desire to give something beautiful to the world. “And I think he did it. They both changed the world and the world of fashion in huge ways and in very distinct ways.”
The 10-part series chronicles how they learned their trade, maneuvered the world of the wealthy and competed with each other. Key to both is one who came before them – Lucien Lelong. “What made him noteworthy was his ability to recognize talent because so many gifted designers came through the house of Lelong,” says John Malkovich, the actor who plays him. “Dior, being a principal one, obviously, but many others as well – Balmain, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Pierre Cardin. He was very involved with keeping the French fashion industry in France and not Berlin.”
Ben Mendelsohn stars in "The New Look."
Other names
Like Malkovich, Maisie Williams didn’t know much about her character, Catherine Dior, before the series. “I knew about the muses of Dior…but it felt kind of removed from my idea of Miss Dior,” she says. “She had an incredible life and she does become a person of hope…someone who is inherently good.”
Catherine Dior, Christian’s sister, was a leader in the Resistance in Paris, transmitting secret reports to London. In 1944, she was arrested, then tortured by the Gestapo. She was sent to a series of concentration camps until the U.S. Army captured an aviation factory a year later. She was liberated near Dresden and returned to Paris, where her brother barely recognized her. She was awarded numerous medals of honor for her acts of resistance.
“She was an incredible woman,” Williams says. And it was an amazing opportunity to play her.”
John Malkovich plays a fashion mentor in "The New Look."
Juliette Binoche plays Coco Chanel, the trendsetting fashion design who built an empire, in "The New Look."
Chanel’s ties were not quite as honorable – she was criticized for collaborating with Nazi occupiers in an attempt to foster her career.
“The roots of (her) childhood (are) very important,” Binoche says. “All the behaviors, and the traumatisms, and being survivors in this very tough situation (have an impact).”
The Oscar-winning actress says it was important to find connections between her life and Chanel’s. “I felt like I had to be Chanel in a way.”
Maisie Williams plays Christian Dior's sister, a woman who was pulled into the war and put into a concentration camp in "The New Look."
While “The New Look” ends with Dior’s first fashion show, there is more drama to fuel subsequent seasons.
“An audience draws their own conclusions (about the situation),” Kessler says. “If an audience can take anything away from it that relates to their lives, emotionally, literally, spiritually, anything, that’s why we’re doing it. It relates to our lives but it’s not to lead the audience to think one way or another. The inspiration is to honor these people’s lives and their experiences.”
“The New Look” airs on AppleTV+.
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