“I continue to search for the magnificent collection that will rise from the ashes of war,” says legendary star Glenn Close. Harper’s Bazaar editor Carmel Snow on upcoming television series New view.
When the Nazi occupation of Paris ended in 1945, the city’s once cherished couture scene was desolate. Many houses, including Chanel, had closed; The few names who continued in business and (knowingly or naively) sold ball gowns to Nazi wives were now somewhat tarnished in the eyes of the liberated French customer.
In this environment, Christian Dior launched his first collection in 1947. The reception was enthusiastic, the lines resembled green shoots. Snow and his colleagues had found the revolutionary they were looking for. “Dear Christian,” Snow famously said in real life, “your clothes have a very new look.” The collection and its reception changed the way we dress.
New viewAiring on Apple TV on February 14, it chronicles Dior’s beginnings as one of the world’s most well-known fashion designers. Directed by Todd A Kessler (writer behind) DamagesHe started his career on the sopranos) has assembled a terrific cast: Ben Mendelsohn as Monsieur Dior, Juliette Binoche as her rival Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, John Malkovich as her former employer Lucien Lelong, and Close as their organizer Snow. Acting legends play fashion legends, match after match.
Behind the glamor, Kessler says, the series explores events that have “never been dramatized before” at this unique turning point in fashion history. Telegram. “The extraordinary circumstances that led Christian Dior to launch his first collection in 1947 served as inspiration. New view. “The four-year Nazi occupation of Paris and the horrors of the Second World War, which affected almost everyone living at the time, led to a revival of creativity.”
Throughout 10 chapters, Kessler imagines, romanticizes, and reinforces the friendship and rivalry between Dior and his contemporaries (especially Chanel, Pierre Balmain, and Lelong). It reveals the challenges each persona faced during the Second World War – the question of whether to continue designing, and for clients on which side, to aid the efforts of the French resistance while also appearing as high-profile individuals. Many of Paris’s glittering fashion leaders were glamorous figures whom Nazi leaders wanted to meet and, in some cases, move to Berlin.
So how much of the story is true? Dior began his career first as a gallerist and then as an illustrator, before accepting a job as Robert Piguet’s house designer in 1938. After being called up for military service in 1939, he returned to Paris to design Lucien Lelong’s house.
Kessler’s drama begins here, in 1943, when Dior and his collaborator Pierre Balmain, apparently fed up with designing for someone else’s name and grappling with the moral dilemma of accepting fees for making dresses, were left behind as the only party throwers. Nazis.
Getting close to this particular moment in time is extremely complex and therefore ripe for dramatization. For seven years, Kessler “researched not only the personal stories of Dior and his contemporaries (Chanel, Balenciaga, Balmain, Lelong, Givenchy, Pierre Cardin), but also the two decades leading up to this revolution in France.” “The Nazi Occupation of Paris,” he says. “It was important for me to understand as much as I could the French view of life, of freedom, and what it meant to have these taken away from them by the Germans.”
Chanel’s wartime allegiances appeared contradictory; It is known that in July 1941 he was registered as a reliable source by Nazi authorities using the code name Westminster. However, in January 1943 he was recorded as occasionally joining the French Resistance as an agent.
Couture closed his business in 1939 and did not reopen until he was 71 in February 1954. By then, Dior was considered a master of couture and the most famous designer in the world; Chanel’s comeback caused a stir in the press. . “Beware M. Dior – Mlle Chanel may be one step ahead of you,” British journalist Jean Wiseman wrote at the time.
Christian’s beloved younger sister, Catherine Dior, played an important role in establishing Christian’s namesake house. He was an active member of the French Resistance and was eventually captured and taken to Ravensbrück in August 1944. His courageous story was often overshadowed by his older brother’s extraordinary success. Yet his safe return to Paris in May 1945 contributed to the optimism the designer felt as he created his New Look and the scent of Miss Dior sprayed into his atelier as he presented his new design ideas.
“Catherine’s return seemed to bring about a change in Christian,” said Justine Picardie. Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couturewrote this Telegram In 2021. “While he had never shown any particular desire to have a couture house of his own, in April 1946 he suddenly found the confidence to do so. “When he showed the New Look collection, Catherine was in the audience watching.”
Maisie Williams, the actor who plays Catherine in the series, read Picardie’s book before accepting the role and listened to portions of the audiobook over and over again before going to bed every night during filming.
“Everything Catherine went through is little known,” Williams says Telegram. “When we think of fashion and we think of Christian Dior, we don’t actually think of Catherine. But the life he lived and the impact he made was a huge part of his inspiration. I wanted to tell the person’s story so people could connect with how it affected them.
Dior wrote in his 1957 autobiography that “his unhappy period was over” when Catherine returned. He was also cheered up when he saw that Pierre Balmain had left Lelong and started his own company, and he did the same. He visited a fortune teller, received financial support from the Boussac group, and saw the lease of the building he admired at 30 Avenue Montaigne as a seal of fate.
“My optimism allowed me to temporarily forget that we were still living in the aftermath of a terrible war,” Dior wrote in his memoirs. “The traces of this were all over me; damaged buildings, devastated countrysides, rationing… and, less seriously but of more immediate interest to me, hideous fashions. “The hats were too big, the skirts were too short, the jackets were too long, the shoes were too heavy.”
He joined his friends at Fleury-en-Bière and within two weeks had drawn the foundations of the first Corolle and En 8 series – elegant collections that would later be called the “New Look”. Her vision was to allow women who had limited access to fabrics and might have spent time only wearing uniforms, to feel feminine and beautiful with their rounded shoulders, short waists and full skirts. Her dresses bore eye-catching names such as Gala, Vogue, Songe (dream), indicating where they should be worn and how they could make the wearer feel.
Dior later reflected: “We were just coming out of a period of poverty-stricken miserliness, obsessed with report books and clothing coupons.” “It was natural that my creations would take the form of a reaction against this lack of imagination.”
Kessler says this intuition is the key to success. Although the series is dramatized, it offers viewers a chance to understand the pain and saga that propelled one of the world’s most well-known record labels.
Kessler says he wants viewers to “press the pause button.” “We talk about these names every day on the streets, in airports, in fashion houses. “We must ask ourselves who are the people behind the names we have known throughout our lives?”