‘The New Look’ series review: As beautiful as it is meandering and morose

Ben Mendelsohn in a still from ‘The New Look’

One does not speak of haute couture and war in the same sentence. During the Second World War, however, when the Nazis occupied France, designers ended up working for them. The New Look, Apple’s gorgeous new show, “inspired by true events”, looks at the cost of war on the souls of designers.

The show opens in Paris in 1955 with the legendary Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche) making her comeback after eight years in exile and Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) being honoured with a retrospective at Sorbonne University. When a student asks Dior about why he chose to create gowns for Nazi wives and mistresses while Chanel shut shop in 1939 at the beginning of the war, Dior talks of the things that needed to be done to survive the chaos of war.

Thomas Poitevin and John Malkovich in a still from ‘The New Look’

We go back in time to 1943 Paris, where the bread lines are long, and supply is short. Dior is working for the couture house of Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich). His younger sister, Catherine (Maisie Williams), works for the resistance and is arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbrück camp, much to Dior’s distress. Other designers at Lelong include Cristóbal Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes) and Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin).

On the other side of town, at the Ritz, where Chanel and high-ranking officials of the Nazi party live, Chanel’s beloved nephew, Andre (Joseph Olivennes), is captured by the Germans. Chanel is willing to try anything to get him released. Even though the Baron (Christopher Buchholz) warns her of the cost of taking favours from the Nazis, she goes ahead to do just that — invoking the hateful “Aryan law” to wrest back control of her business from her partners, the Wertheimers.

As there is no such thing as a free lunch, the Nazis want to use Chanel’s connections with the British aristocracy to petition the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. The smarmy, shady aristocrat Hans von Dincklage (Claes Bang) introduces Chanel to the head of foreign intelligence, Walter Schellenberg (Jannis Niewöhner). In the Churchill scheme, Schellenberg asks Chanel to rope in her frenemy, Elsa Lombardi (Emily Mortimer), an English aristocrat, to ensure a meeting with Churchill.

The New Look tells these parallel stories — of Chanel’s fall from grace and Dior’s rise. As France is liberated, Chanel is under suspicion for collaborating and flees to Switzerland, all the while continuing her machinations to sue the Wertheimers.

The show ends where it began, with Dior telling the student that all he “ever wanted to do was to create the most beautiful women’s clothing that ever existed.” There is the creation of the Miss Dior perfume as a tribute to Catherine, his consultations with the medium Madame Delahaye (Darina Al Joundi) and the collection with which he launches his couture house, which the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Carmel Snow (Glenn Close) christens the New Look.

The New Look is seductive for its beauty and performances. Mendelsohn makes for a melancholic Dior with a Gallic shrug that conveys oceans of meaning with the tiniest movement. Binoche, meanwhile, nails the impetuous, tempestuous, chain-smoking Chanel. The clothes are naturally gorgeous, and the period detail is delightful. Many of the frames look straight out of a museum, with a gloss and patina of a classic painting.

That much beauty tends to make the object appear remote. The scatter-shot approach sees the show try to cover too much ground and end up being rather shallow. The dodgy French accent is annoying and inspired by true events though it might be, do not make the mistake of looking to The New Look for accuracy. Why would Churchill be referred to as Sir Winston in 1943 when he was not knighted till 1953? One can spend time with this fashion fantasy for the lovely clothes and performances and not much else.

The New Look is currently streaming on Apple TV+ with weekly episodes dropping every Wednesday till April 3, 2024