The New Look
TV REVIEW Drama: Apple TV+ (10 episodes; all reviewed); Feb. 14 Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche
World War II is well-worn territory for prestige TV, but at first blush, “The New Look” has a novel way in. The Apple TV+ drama, created by Todd A. Kessler of “Bloodline,” traces the conflict’s impact on the Paris-based fashion industry, focusing on two titans of the craft: Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) and Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche). For the purposes of “The New Look,” which begins under Nazi occupation, these peers are also foils. Dior is a sensitive dreamer whose younger sister, Catherine (Maisie Williams), joined the Resistance and spent time in a concentration camp. Chanel is a shrewd, self-made entrepreneur who infamously collaborated with the Nazis.
“The New Look” bills itself as “the story of how creation helped return spirit and life to the world.” The name comes from Dior’s legendary debut collection in 1947, which announced a pendulum swing from wartime austerity to midcentury elegance. Not that you would know that from watching “The New Look,” which shows minimal interest in what made Dior a master artisan, nor Chanel a successful entrepreneur. The contrast between the brutality of war and the fragility of art is an ideal subject for extended study. Sadly, the show instead focuses on the most familiar aspects of its setting, underserving those that could set it apart.
Though “The New Look” declares its intent to center the aftermath of the war, the clock quickly rewinds to the 1940s. From there, events proceed at a sluggish pace. It takes three full episodes until Paris is liberated — both too much time given the show’s stated interests and not enough to do the Vichy period justice. Dior spends the war working in the atelier of his mentor, Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich), sustaining the French fashion apparatus by dressing the wives of German officers. Chanel initially shutters her business, only to strike up an affair with a high-ranking Nazi (Claes Bang), conduct espionage under the code name Agent Westminster and attempt to use the Aryan Laws to seize the company from her Jewish partners.
Given how these actions linger over both designers, “The New Look” could have used a dual-timeline structure that juxtaposed trauma and recovery. Dwelling on the occupation emphasizes the trauma at the expense of fashion. With Chanel holed up in the Ritz and Dior still an anonymous apprentice, the show initially foregrounds Catherine’s subterfuge, capture and detention. The subplot both hews to tired tropes of heroic defiance and typecasts the onetime Arya Stark as yet another rebellious fighter ripped apart from her family.
Mendelsohn, by contrast, is woefully miscast as the up-and-coming couturier. The 54-year-old
Australian is unconvincing as the fresh face of a new generation, and doubly so as the older sibling of the 26-year-old Williams. Mendelsohn has a weathered face and gravelly voice that don’t square with the tender-hearted Dior, who becomes emotionally dependent on his tarot reader and balks at the idea of poaching employees from his friends. Said friends include fellow designers Cristobál Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes) and Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin), whose contributions to the field go entirely unexplored.
Yet these problems pale in comparison to how “The New Look” handles Chanel. The show doesn’t shy away from depicting her collaboration, yet its portrait is strangely soft. The mogul may be selfish, hypocritical and opportunistic, but she’s almost never shown to be overtly prejudiced. Rather than arising from a shared worldview, her alliance with the Nazis is played almost passively, as a woman succumbing to pressure without considering the consequences. Considering Chanel’s active abetting of a genocidal regime, it’s an awfully generous interpretation.
After the war, Chanel flees to Switzerland to avoid prosecution, as she did in real life. There, she refuses to admit to or reckon with her betrayals. Such denial is psychologically plausible, yet dull to watch for hours on end. “The New Look” comes dangerously close to endorsing Chanel’s conflation of deserved judgment with sexism or ageism. An opening flash-forward also shows her back in Paris, undercutting any comeuppance while setting up an unearned triumph. “The New Look” lacks either the moral clarity or the emotional nuance required of this material. Between its fuzzy read on Chanel and its inattention to her or Dior’s actual gifts, one wonders what it wanted to be to begin with.