Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The New Look’ On Apple TV+, The Story Of Christian Dior’s Rise In The Fashion World As Coco Chanel Struggles To Make A Comeback

Created by Todd A. Kessler (Bloodline), The New Look is a fictionalized retelling of how Christian Dior rose in the fashion world after World War II, while others like Chanel, had to rebuild their reputations after either shutting down during the occupation or getting in bed with the Nazis, to their detriment. It’s a spare-no-expense production, with lavish settings and some stylized shots that contrast the glamour of the French haute couture world with the horrors that the French suffered under German occupation in the first half of the 1940s.

THE NEW LOOK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “1955. PARIS.” Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche) stands in a hotel room, cigarette in hand, talking to a couple of reporters about reestablishing her fashion label, especially since the rise of Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn).

The Gist: While Chanel is having that mini press conference, Dior is at the Sorbonne, the first fashion designer to give a lecture in that university’s over 700 year history. Part of the presentation is a fashion show, which gets bumped up in the order when his handler, Madame Reymonde Zenhacker (Zabou Breitman), finds him getting a tarot card reading when he’s supposed to be ready to go on stage. When he does finally come out, to a rousing ovation, he fields a question about designing ball gowns for the Nazis during World War II when other designers, like Chanel, shut down operations during the German occupation of France.

As he starts talking about what a low point the occupation was in the lives of everyone in France, we flash back to 1943. The Germans have occupied France for 3 years, and as Dior stands in line to get food rations, gunshots go off. It turns out that his sister, Catherine (Maisie Williams) was being used as a decoy so her friends in the resistance could attack German soldiers.

Her boyfriend Herve (Hugo Becker) is one of the leaders of the movement, and when they bring one of the shooters to Christian’s apartment, he objects at first. He is also concerned that Catherine is getting mixed up such a dangerous thing as the resistance. Catherine, though, is flummoxed by the idea that Christian is designing ball gowns for the wives of Nazi higher-ups, but Christian tells her that it’s the only way he has to bring in money.

Christian works for the fashion house Maison Lelong, and the founder, Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich), has been tasked with having his designers work on those gowns. He feels he also has no choice, as the Nazis have threatened his livelihood. Other designers in his employ, like Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin), purposely tank their designs due to their distaste for working for the Nazis. Other designers Christian knows, like Cristóbal Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes), would rather shut down than work for the Germans. Christian reluctantly does the work, but when one Nazi wife requests his presence at fittings, he refuses.

Coco Chanel is one of those designers who have closed shop, but she can’t access the cash in her company because it’s tied up with her business partners; she’s also staying at the Nazi-controlled Ritz Hotel. And when she has a friend call in favors to keep her nephew from being killed by the Nazis, he implores her to have a meeting with a German British aristocrat with the code name Spatz (Claes Bang).

He gently convinces her to have dinner with Nazi bigwig Heinrich Himmler (Thure Lindhardt), who is fascinated with the French concept of haute couture, and wants to be in business with Chanel. And, given that her business partners are Jewish, Himmler feels that eliminating that encumberment is a win-win, given the efforts the Nazis are making to take the wealth and culture away from the Jews, then exterminating them. Spatz not only offers Chanel whatever she wants from a wealthy Jewish family’s seized apartment, but sleeps with her, as well.

When Lelong orders Christian to go to a Nazi formal to fix a dress he designed, a formal that Chanel attends with Spatz, he’s given word by the Nazi official’s wife that Catherine is in danger; she’s out on her bike sending messages to people who might help save some resistance members whom the Nazis arrested in a raid.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Cross Halston with World On Fire, and you have The New Look.

Our Take: The standout in The New Look is Mendelsohn’s performance as Christian Dior. Deeply conflicted by the situation he finds himself in during the occupation, we see that conflict follow him as he experiences meteoric success after World War II. Mendelsohn’s performance shows that conflict, showing Dior not as some swaggering fashion icon, but a man who is constantly walking around with a heavy weight on his shoulders. Even when the Sorbonne is honoring him, he relies on a tarot card reader to tell him whether his lecture is going to be successful or not.

Binoche carries Chanel’s burden well, of course, but she’s definitely playing Chanel as someone who masks that burden under declarations about how Dior’s designs are too complex and other affectations. Showing her unbothered by Himmler telling her that they can get rid of what they deem her “Jewish problem” is a disturbing scene, to say the least, and seeing how she seems to take that information like it’s just more dinner party banter is unfortunate to watch.

What Kessler is setting up, of course, is the rivalry between Dior and Chanel in the 1950s, and what it seems like the rivalry will be based on is the fact that Dior worked for the Nazis and didn’t suffer from it, while Chanel did. How long Kessler will get to that point is uncertain; he takes his time in the first episode, and while the WWII portion of the story will certainly set up the moral dilemmas both designers faced, we’re not sure how that will manifest after the war. Will those moral dilemmas rear their heads or will the rivalry be treated like something out of a Ryan Murphy series (like the aforementioned Halston)?

Sex and Skin: Catherine wakes up naked in one scene, but the nudity is handled with subtlety.

Parting Shot: As the stunned Christian stumbles out of the Nazi formal, trying to figure out how to keep his sister from danger, he catches the eye of Chanel, standing next to Spatz at the ball.

Sleeper Star: We can’t give this to anyone but John Malkovich, who plays Dior’s craven boss, Lucien Lelong.

Most Pilot-y Line: Chanel asks Spatz why he’s called by that nickname, the German word for sparrow. “Because I’m the exact opposite of a sparrow, with its shabby feathers and ugly song.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. The New Look may spiral into ridiculousness as the story gets away from its World War II beginnings, but it starts off as a unsparing look at how two French designers dealt with being under Nazi occupation.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.