Throughout the season, Dior and Chanel engage in a series of intense and dramatic battles as they compete for the attention of fashion editors, models, and clients. Their rivalry is fueled by their vastly different approaches to fashion, with Dior championing a more traditional and elegant style, while Chanel advocates for a more modern and liberated approach.
Essential viewing for fans of historical dramas ( The Crown meets Atonement ), but approach with awareness of its controversial historical license. The New Look - Season 1
The New Look: Fashion, Fear, and the Birth of a Legacy The New Look Throughout the season, Dior and Chanel engage in
Before founding his namesake house, Dior worked under Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich), often designing for the wives of Nazi officers to earn a living—a compromise that would later haunt him. The New Look: Fashion, Fear, and the Birth
The final episode jumps forward to post-war Paris. Dior launches his revolutionary “New Look” collection (the Corolle line), which redefines femininity with wasp waists and lavish fabric—a stark rejection of wartime austerity. Chanel, vilified for collaboration but secretly protected by Churchill, languishes in Swiss exile, plotting her return.
"The New Look" is inspired by the real-life events and experiences of Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, two of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century. The show's creator, Emily in Paris's Darren Star, was fascinated by the lives and careers of these two fashion icons and wanted to bring their stories to life on screen. With the help of a talented cast, including Ben Feldman as Christian Dior and Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel, Star has successfully recreated the glamour and excitement of 1940s Paris.
Ben Mendelsohn delivers a career-defining performance as Christian Dior. He portrays the designer not as a flamboyant arbiter of style, but as a gentle, anxious, and deeply empathetic man who views fashion as a form of armor for women. The series painstakingly traces Dior’s journey from a gallery owner’s assistant to the savior of Parisian elegance. We see him grappling with the loss of his mother and the pressures of a wartime economy, Mendelsohn imbuing every scene with a trembling sensitivity that makes Dior’s eventual triumph feel earned, rather than inevitable.