High fashion clashes with Nazi collaborators in the Apple TV+ series ‘The New Look’
nypost.comApple TV+ series traces the modern French fashion world through the eyes of acclaimed haute couture designers Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) and Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche) amid Nazi-occupied Paris and how each of them, and their compatriots, dealt with that adversity with different shadings of complicity.Created by Todd Kessler (“Bloodline”), “The New Look” co-stars John Malkovich as Lucien Lelong, Dior’s first boss; Maisie Williams as Dior’s French-resistance fighter sister, Catherine; Claes Bang as Nazi operator Spatz, with whom Chanel consorts; Emily Mortimer as Chanel’s sketchy friend Elsa Lombardi; and Glenn Close as powerful Harper’s Bazaar Editor-in-Chief Carmel Snow.
Mendelsohn, Binoche and Malkovich spoke to The Post about their characters’ motivations.When we first meet Dior, he’s happy working for Lelong and somewhat ambiguous about the Nazis, designing ball gowns for officers’ wives but refusing to meet with any of them in person.
But when Catherine is taken prisoner by the Nazis — and sent to Ravensbrück, a deadly work camp — Dior’s attitude toward the war changes.Mendelsohn: “[Getting Catherine back] becomes his absolute raison d’etre from that point on.
She’s his most adored sibling, his everything. He’s quite a pain-in-the-ass to her, I think, but they have a nice brother-sister relationship — and when she’s gone it’s an absolute living nightmare for him.
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