One of the chicest rivalries in fashion history will be placed front and centre in a glamorous new mini series The New Look, starring Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche and Maisie Williams, who shared a behind the scenes glimpse from the set on Instagram yesterday.
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The series, which will be produced by AppleTV and was announced in February, does not yet have a release date but is already prompting chatter thanks to its all-star cast, gripping subject matter, and promise of elegance of the highest order. Fashion, drama and World War II intrigue, all set against the ever captivating backdrop of Paris. What’s not to love?
Writing on Instagram yesterday, Williams, 25, who is best known for her star turn in Game Of Thrones, revealed she had just finished filming in the City of Lights, as she shared a tantalising tease of what viewers can expect from the series. Good news: the costumes are as impeccable as one might hope.
Williams has been cast as Catherine Dior, the couturier’s youngest sister, French resistance fighter and inspiration for his Miss Dior fragrance, while Mendelsohn and Binoche take on the roles of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. Emily Mortimer has been cast as Eva Colozzi, a friend and muse of Chanel’s, while Claes Bang will play Hans Von Dincklage, a German intelligence officer tasked with seducing and spying upon the women of Parisian high society.
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The exact plot, of course, remains to be seen, but the title of the miniseries gives us a hint. In February 1947, Dior exploded his fashion bombshell, the New Look, whose long, swinging skirts, corseted waists and yards of material were a breath of fresh air for a world gasping for glamour following wartime rationing. That autumn there was a packed show in the UK, followed by a secret show at the French ambassador’s residence for the then Princess Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret, who later commissioned her coming-of-age dress from the French fashion powerhouse.
However, while many were captivated by the fashion revelation, Coco Chanel was unmoved and is said to have famously declared, ‘Look how ridiculous these women are, wearing clothes by a man who doesn’t know women, never had one, and dreams of being one.’ So began a fashion rivalry between two of the biggest names in the industry. On another occasion, she was quoted as saying, ‘Dior doesn’t dress women. He upholsters him’.
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It is unclear how prominently Coco Chanel will feature in the series, as she moved to Switzerland for several years after the war, but it is possible producers will want to touch upon her ties to the Nazi party, given the wartime context. There is also scope for a who’s who of celebrated fashion designers to feature, including Dior’s contemporaries Cristóbal Balenciaga, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Balmain, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent.
Shots from the set show Williams dressed in a mourning ensemble, suggesting it might touch upon the unexpected, sudden death of Dior from a heart attack in 1957.
The character of Catherine Dior deserves a mini series all of her own: she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, and imprisoned in a concentration camp before being awarded the King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom on her release.
