The Big Picture

The New Look
is a must-watch series that explores the life of Christian Dior during WWII, alongside Coco Chanel’s controversial history.
The show dives into the dangerous operations undertaken by average citizens in the fight against the Third Reich.
The series requires viewers to have a solid understanding of WWII and the history of fashion to appreciate it fully.

If Apple TV+’s Masters of the Air has you in the mood for more television set against the backdrop of World War II, then the streamer’s latest series The New Look is a must-watch. The biographical series details famed fashion designer Christian Dior’s (Ben Mendelsohn) life during the war, alongside the harrowing—and far more dangerous—existence of his younger sister Catherine (MaisieWilliams). While The New Look may be named after Dior’s fashion line, which was founded during this period, the series sees the two siblings sharing the spotlight with the similarly iconic, yet deeply controversial Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche).

As we march towards the 100th anniversary of the start of World War II, which is only fifteen years ahead of present-day, and reflect upon the too-familiar political turmoil and dangerous rhetoric that led to the Holocaust, Hollywood seems to have zeroed in on this era of history to mine stories from. While Netflix’s German adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, which depicted WWI and the lead-up to WWII, dominated at the Oscars last year, 2023 also saw the arrival of National Geographic’s biographical series A Small Light and the series adaptation of All the Light We Cannot See, plus the exceptional foreign-language miniseries Transatlantic. This year seems to follow a similar trend, with The Zone of Interest securing a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, and The New Look, We Were the Lucky Ones, Masters of the Air, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz arriving on the small screen in quick succession.

The New Look requires its audience to have more than elementary-level knowledge of World War II to fully enjoy it—something that sets it apart from series that aim broader with their Holocaust-adjacent stories. Rather than pausing to educate about the French Resistance, it dives head-first into the dangerous operations undertaken by average citizens in the fight against the Third Reich, often at great personal cost. Similarly, one must have a firm grasp of the history of fashion and the who’s who of the era, particularly where Coco Chanel’s sordid history with Nazism is concerned. Much in the same way that history marches forward without hesitation, The New Look takes no time to prepare its audiences for the journey it embarks on.

The New Look Explores the rise of fashion designer Christian Dior, as he dethrones Coco Chanel and helps return spirit and life to the world with his iconic imprint of beauty and influence.Release Date February 14, 2024 Creator Todd A. Kessler Main Genre Drama Seasons 1

How Does ‘The New Look’ Handle Its Complicated Characters?

The New Look creator Todd A. Kessler is no stranger to crafting stories about controversial and difficult characters, and through the series, you can hear the echoes of the scripts he penned for The Sopranos, as well as Bloodline and Damages, which he co-created. It’s a sort of precise storytelling that few creatives have such a keen eye for—where the most loathsome of characters can become the most compelling examinations of human folly.

It would be easy to sympathize with Coco Chanel, seeing as she was a woman alone trying to survive within the dangerous confines of a man’s world, but The New Look’s script walks a narrow line by allowing the audience to make their own judgment calls. Her fame as a fashion designer brought her a certain level of safety from being immediately written off by the Nazi occupiers, but it wasn’t enough to keep her hands clean of the innocent blood being spilled.

The New Look’s first three episodes do a good job of establishing Coco Chanel’s well-documented romance with Hans Von Dincklage (Claes Bang) — or as he is affectionately called, “Spatz.” Bang cuts a fine figure as the smooth-talking Nazi officer, a nice reprieve from the rather comical appearance of the bespectacled Heinrich Himmler (Thure Lindhardt) and providing a not-so-gentle reminder that the Nazis could be suave romantics too. It’s unclear—yet—just how far the series plans to go with Coco’s rendezvous with Nazism, as scholars are often in disagreement with her activities. Was she a street-smart woman who went to bed with Nazis to survive, or an awful anti-Semite who jumped at the chance to be a spy for the Nazis? It will be interesting to see how audiences react to her intimate involvement with the Nazis, especially juxtaposed with the horrors that Diors—particularly Catherine—went through just to aid the Resistance and do the morally right thing.

Maisie Williams Steals the Show in ‘The New Look’

The New Look very much fits into the same niche of Holocaust-era series as A Small Light, which tells a story that is somewhat adjacent to the typical tales about the horrors the Jewish people faced during the war. These are everyday people who were not the direct targets of the Nazis, who were simply trying to survive. Some sought to survive by throwing themselves into the act of creating art, while others sought to risk themselves by saving others or saving themselves by sacrificing others. To some extent, there is a “middle-of-the-road” approach deployed here, but that shows how easy it is to sit idly by. History is never history when it’s happening, and hindsight makes heroes and villains out of all.

Along those lines, Maisie Williams is a clear standout in The New Look, if only because the first three episodes focus so heavily on Catherine’s involvement with the French Resistance. Between the two Dior siblings, Catherine paid the highest cost, and the series follows her arrest in 1941 and the torture she endured at the hands of the Gestapo. While it isn’t necessarily gratuitous, her brutalization at the hands of “The Professor” (Jacob Diehl) is extremely unsettling. Even then, it’s likely a gentler interpretation of what the real Catherine went through and came out the other side of, still fighting. With seven more episodes ahead for the series, Williams is poised to give an even more powerful performance as Catherine’s time in the Ravensbrück concentration camp continues to unfold.

In the last few years, there has been an unsettling tendency in biographical stories to portray the queer relationships of famous historical figures through a rather garish and heavy-handed narrative styling. Fortunately, Christian Dior’s relationships are not depicted in such a manner. Instead, they are simply showcased as part of who he is, just as his sister’s relationship with Hervé (Hugo Becker) is shown. There is no circle drawn around it, no neon sign pointing to the fact that Dior was a closeted gay man living in a period where it was not socially accepted. Other biographical stories could learn from The New Look’s styling, which doesn’t ever other a story aspect that should never be treated as such.

Mendelsohn is exceptional as Christian Dior, hitting all the right notes as the acclaimed fashion designer navigating a harrowing and cutthroat era. There is a degree of duplicity he has to play with, using his connections in the fashion industry to find his sister once disaster strikes, and Mendelsohn plays through those emotions with ease. Despite the 28-year age difference between Mendelsohn and Williams (versus the 12-year age difference between the real siblings), they are convincing in their portrayal of the Dior family.

‘The New Look’ Features an Incredible Soundtrack

One of the most intriguing aspects of The New Look is its soundtrack, which is the first release for Jack Antonoff under his new label Shadow of the City, through Dirty Hit. Antonoff is a legend within the modern-day music industry, and it is quite fun to see which wartime songs he plucked from history to remake with the vocal talents of some of the finest crooners today. The end credits for the first three episodes feature Florence Welch (“White Cliffs of Dover”), Matty Healy from The 1975 (“Now Is the Hour”), and Lana del Rey (“Blue Skies”), and these choices neatly mirror the events of each episode.

The thematic parallels between the song choices and the scenes that play out in each episode showcase a very intentional effort placed upon crafting the soundscape for the series. The end credits match up perfectly with the scoring by composer James S. Levine, creating an evocative experience from the first second of each episode to the very last. It should also be noted that Antonoff has a personal connection to the era, as his grandparents fled Poland at the onset of the Holocaust. It’s nice to see filmmakers drawing on creatives with connections to these stories to contribute to them, and to get a chance to bring in frequent collaborators and friends like Perfume Genius, Nick Cave, Beabadoobee, Joy Oladokun, Bartees Stranger, Sam Dew, and Antonoff’s own band, Bleachers. While it may seem anachronistic for the end credits to feature tracks recorded by iconic modern-day musicians, Antonoff has perfectly captured the woebegone aesthetics of the wartime classics reimagined for the series. It helps that the orchestration from the tracks is threaded throughout the score of each episode they’re paired with, which prepares audiences for the dulcet tones and crooning sorrow of each artist. It is as if the soul has been prepared for the haunting sorrow instilled in each track.

The music choices and scoring work in concert with the sumptuous costuming, keen direction, and clever ways the camera explores the bleak and hopeless existence these characters find themselves thrust into. The New Look neatly threads the needle on Christian Dior’s life while tearing at the seams of some of fashion’s most prominent figures.

The New Look REVIEWThe New Look is a must-see show for Apple TV+ that threads the needle on Christian Dior’s life. ProsThe New Look features an all-star cast from across Britain, France, and Germany.The series? musical choices help to shape the exceptional storytelling unfolding.Todd A. Kessler, once again, captures complex characters in a compelling light. ConsThe New Look requires viewers to have an educated understanding of fashion and WWII.

The first three episodes of The New Look arrive on Apple TV+ in the U.S. on Wednesday, February 14, followed by one episode every Wednesday through April 3.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+