The New Look

A must-watch. .... Maisie Williams is a clear standout in The New Look. .... Mendelsohn is exceptional as Christian Dior.

The 10-episode show offers a layered take on the choices each designer makes, walking us step by step through their respective situations. I was impressed by creator Todd A. Kessler’s commitment to avoiding oversimplification and superficiality.

Accent quibbles aside, though, this series is a beautifully made, nuanced exploration of two creative geniuses whose lives were far from black and white. And it’s certainly proof that fashion isn’t frivolous: it’s deeply woven into some of history’s most significant moments.

She [Binoche] does succeed in making Coco, who is a moral bankrupt, eminently watchable, and Emily Mortimer as Elsa Lombardi—illegitimate child of English royalty, global house guest and, ultimately, a Coco victim—is also first-rate. Likewise Mr. Mendelsohn, a marvelous actor capable of being quite scary (see: "Animal Kingdom") but who makes Dior a character lovable in his anguish. .... This is the story of how creation helped return spirit and life to the world." By the end, you believe it.

From the start, Coco and Christian’s arcs diverge so vastly that the two characters are only in the same room twice over ten hour-long episodes. Nevertheless, Kessler keeps their stories in conversation with one another through common themes, wringing intellectual and emotional power from the contrasts between their journeys.

Both Binoche and Mendelsohn handle their larger-than-life characters with grace, never slipping into caricature mode. Mendelsohn, in particular, gives a tender, calibrated performance, one that’s particularly strong in early scenes involving his attempt to find his sister Catherine (Maisie Williams) during the occupation.

I’m wondering if the material might have been better served with TWO full seasons, with the first focusing on the war years and the second providing a more detailed look at the aftermath, and the respective careers of Chanel and Dior and the houses they built. Still, this is a solid and substantial look at the power of creating hope by making something beautiful in the aftermath of a most horrible time.

If it’s a tad too didactic and maudlin at times, such faults are easily overlooked when the overall effect is so stirring, reminding us how much strength is required in living (and creating) according to one’s principles. And, perhaps more importantly, how such superficial things as fashion carry within them entire histories worth unearthing.

The New Look may spiral into ridiculousness as the story gets away from its World War II beginnings, but it starts off as a unsparing look at how two French designers dealt with being under Nazi occupation.

The series explicitly pits Chanel — and, by extension, her fashion legacy, which remains fuzzy and ill-defined in the show — against Dior (Ben Mendelsohn), who spends much of the series blocked and groping for inspiration while trying to find his sister Catherine (Maisie Williams), a freedom fighter who was captured and sent to a concentration camp. .... The series still offers many unexpectedly strange or tender moments and a lot of history that was, and remains, enormously interesting.

The New Look lags and drags. It takes far too long to get its points across. When it finally does, it does so with not enough conviction. Instead of focusing on the fashion, which is in the title (The New Look was the name of Dior’s first collection when he set up his own house), the 10-episode series keeps forgetting what it’s about and reverts to being a Holocaust story.

If taken as a whole, the series has a lumbering, scattered quality but there are things to enjoy along the way.

It looks sumptuous but feels pedestrian. Much of that is down to the directorial decisions.

While "The New Look" isn’t badly made or acted, it is just generally unremarkable. It’s too long at 10 episodes, and a challenge to embark on especially once it jumps back to 1943 and promises to cover the horrors of the time.

Much of this 10-episode series is a rather dull and thinly written exploration of life in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Subtle performances, particularly from Mendelsohn and Williams, end up submerged in a vast, confused, ethically dubious soup of a narrative.

Mendelsohn and Binoche keep this period drama watchable, but playing fast and loose with its historical premise means the series comes apart at the seams.

This series promises a lot but – like its accents – misses the mark too frequently. Never sure whose story it wants to tell – Christian’s, Coco’s or Catherine’s – The New Look feels like three wildly different garments sewn together.

It’s just that, as a whole, The New Look doesn’t amount to enough. You could see it as escapism, but that requires accommodation of the fact that the Holocaust is essentially written out of the story in favour of a rivalry over tulle.

The New Look’s approach to its subjects’ motivations, desires, and careers is all frustratingly surface-level for such a consequential story. The series struggles to find the balance between gossipy high-fashion drama and war tale, if there is even a sizable middle point to be established between those two stark opposites at all.

Putting aside the historical revisionism for a second, “The New Look” also falters on its own false terms. For a series ostensibly about fashion, little time is actually spent on the designers’ actual work — costume designer Karen Muller Surreau is barely able to take center-stage — and the camerawork is shakier than that used in the “Bourne” films.

“The New Look” is somehow reluctant to highlight Chanel’s worst qualities. The result lacks either the moral clarity or the emotional nuance required of this material. Between its lack of a handle on Chanel and lack of attention to her or Dior’s actual gifts, one wonders what “The New Look” wanted to be to begin with.