The New Look: ‘Chanel’ Your Inner Fashionista In This Do Or ‘Dior’ Mellow Drama

Fashion and Fascism could never be bed fellows even if they tried. But look at what the makers of Apple TV + have created!

A peerless pastiche of pain and redemption about two of the world’s most celebrated dress designers. Although the series purports to put into perspective the long-standing rivalry between Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, it is actually a lot more.

A mirror of those times when human beings lost their conscience to fascism, the effulgent series of ten episodes (don’t worry, time just flies by) opens in Nazi occupied Paris where couture is suddenly crushed under the wheels of fascism. At a time when survival was a fugitive , self-indulgence a luxury and affluence a crime, clothes designers were the least important section of society….

Or so it would seem. The series shows how Christian Dior and Coco Chanel rode the holocaust. Ms Chanel’s conduct during those trying times is shown to be far from becoming. She lies and wriggles through the German tyranny, claiming to know Winston Churchill intimately, making connection at all the right places, and using them at the right time.

As played by the iconic French actress Juliette Binoche Coco Chanel’s escapades are voluptuous and unintentionally comic. At one point in her self-obsessed journey she owes her chauffeur months of salary. The decent bloke decides to orchestrate a car-jack to rob her in-transit merchandise to make ends meet, but things go horribly awry when Coco decides to come along for the ride at the last minute.

“None of this would have happened Madame, if you had paid me,” says the penitent driver , as Coco Chanel mutters unprintable expletives.

All through she is shown to use, even abuse people to make her way to the top.

Christian Dior, on the other hand, is gentle, softspoken, kind and sensitive. He survives in Nazi-occupied Paris, not by sucking up to the Germans and designing dresses for their wives and mistresses. He keeps his conscience alive and pushes along with his head held high.

To me, the core of The New Look is Christian’s search for his missing sister Catherine. A fierce and fearless member of the Resistance group, Catherine is picked up by the Nazis and subjected to the kind of torture that we sitting in our homes watching her, can never fathom.

Maisie (Game of Thrones) Williams who plays Catherine, does. Fathom the depths of pain. Maisie Williams undergoes a startling physical transformation from a feisty fighter to a gaunt shadow of her past self, in front of our eyes.

This segment of the series, the heart of the matter, is moving for its proclivity to project pain without external trappings such as pensive violins in the background. Ben Mendelsohn does the rest. What an actor! He uses his eyes and hands to convey pain and grace as soul siblings.

I would say this beautiful portrait of elegance during times of savagery is worth watching for Mendelsohn’s performance alone. Opportunely, this series has so much more to offer. A true sartorial and spiritual banquet with moments of heart-stopping violence If you watch only one series every six months, then make sure this is the one.