By Sarah BregelFeatures correspondent
Apple Studios
AppleTV+’s new World War Two period drama explores the lives of Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and their inner circles.
The new AppleTV+ drama The New Look, which was inspired by true events, is set in Paris during the second World War. It was in the midst of the conflict that iconic designers Christian Dior (played by Ben Mendelsohn) and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (Juliette Binoche) were emerging. The series follows their personal lives as well as their supposed professional rivalry as they ushered in a new era for women’s fashion.
The show’s creators aimed to stay close to history with how the lead characters are portrayed in the series. Creator Todd Kessler previously told the BBC that the truth was the goal: “It’s not inspiring to write villains or heroes. What’s inspiring is to explore the grey, because that brings me closer to an understanding of the characters,” he said. Read on to learn more about the real people behind the New Look characters, and explore the true-or-not “grey” areas their storylines touch on.
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Christian Dior
France’s fashion titan is played by actor Ben Mendelsohn, who is known for roles in Animal Kingdom, Bloodline, and The Marsh King’s Daughter. At the start of the show, we meet Dior – he is thriving in his career, but the series aims to show the true struggles he faced while trying to establish his iconic fashion house in 1946, in the midst of the Second World War. The following year, he pivoted, embarking on women’s fashion with his collection, “The New Look”. The series depicts Dior as an emerging fashion icon, but it also shows how tormented he is by the war as he leans into creative expression. As his character puts it, “For those who lived through the chaos of war, creation was survival.”
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Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel (born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel), is played by Juliette Binoche, best known for The English Patient, Chocolat and The Taste of Things. Her portrayal is more complicated than Dior’s, as is her legacy. Chanel was a fascinating woman and an unlikely creator who rose from poverty to establish an unmistakable brand. Still, who Chanel was as a person, and how deep her Nazi associations ran, has long been debated in books about her life, including Coco Chanel: The Life and Legend, by British fashion journalist Justine Picardie, and Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War, by Hal Vaughan. The New Look aims to reckon fully with the truth about her life and choices, offering audiences a nuanced portrayal.
Courtney Kocak, a screenwriter and podcast producer who has discussed Chanel’s life on-air, tells BBC Culture that the new portrayal made her look at the real person through a new lens. “Even though I already knew about Coco Chanel’s Nazi ties, seeing it depicted on-screen made me think about it with more complexity,” she says. “There’s a tendency to view the past in black and white – and I’m certainly not defending her collaboration – but The New Look shows how easy it is to get tangled up in self-interest or self-preservation instead of doing the right thing.”
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Catherine Dior
Another character who is immensely important to the story is Catherine Dior, the younger sister of Christian Dior, played by Maisie Williams. She’s somewhat of a heroine on the show, as a member of the French Resistance who is captured and tortured by the Gestapo. The younger Dior’s portrayal is based on real events and shows the real grit it took to be a part of the resistance. While it has never been confirmed, it is widely believed that the perfume Miss Dior, launched in 1947, was named after Catherine.
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Lucien Lelong
Lucien Lelong, the designer who employed Christian Dior before his brand took off, is played by John Malkovich. Lelong was skilled as a businessman, and is often remembered for standing up to the Nazis, and fighting to keep Paris fashion alive.
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Elsa Lombardi
Elsa Lombardi, a socialite and friend of Chanel’s, is played by English actress Emily Mortimer, known for her roles in Match Point and The Newsroom. According to PBS, Lombardi was involved in “Operation Modellhut,” a Nazi mission to get a message from Hitler to Winston Churchill.
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Carmel Snow
Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar US from 1934 to 1958, is played by Glenn Close and will show up later in the season. Experts have pointed to the superb casting of this character specifically as a high point in the dramatic retelling.
Lara Rosales, critic for Tell-Tale TV, tells BBC Culture that it’s “a key factor in the show’s success” already. She continues, “With Coco Chanel, everyone knows who she is, so casting the perfect actors” determines whether it’s believable to audiences.
That, and showing a more complicated version of that truth, seem to be the dramatic series’ key accomplishments. Kocak says it’s already offering a fresh perspective on an ugly truth: how easy it is for “even smart, successful people, to be on the wrong side of history”. This, she says, is a timeless lesson on morality – one that is as relevant in 2024 as it was in 1944.
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