How to recreate the most famous fashion collection of all time? The new series “The New Look” delves into Dior

“From the first to the ninth episode, we were like people after the war: very happy when we finally got the New Look!” explained costume designer Karen Muller Serreau with a laugh. For a show named after Christian Dior’s revolutionary 1947 fashion line, the new Apple TV+ series “The New Look” takes its time to get to grips with things, only introducing the collection in the last episode.

Dior’s unveiling of his “New Look” collection marked the return of Paris as the fashion capital of the world after World War II. Dior’s first collection under his own name, “Corolle,” featured nipped waists and full skirts that have more than stood the test of time, and in the years since its debut, countless imitations (as well as reissues by the brand itself) have been released that closely followed the silhouette.

The story of these groundbreaking designs – and the man who created them – is the subject of “The New Look,” which follows the designer (played by Ben Mendelsohn) and his creative contemporaries, including Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin), Cristóbal Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes) and Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche) when they revolutionized the fashion industry.

In order to realize his dream of bringing joy back to France with his designs, Dior made the difficult decision to step out of the shadow of his long-time mentor Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich) and open his own fashion house. His luxurious looks competed with Chanel’s reduced aesthetics on his own: “Dior’s designs are extravagance,” Chanel says to a reporter in one scene, dismissing her rival. “I don’t have time for extravagance. No. Simplicity, that’s my style.”

“This show is about the survival of the fashion industry and how inventive people find ways to keep going. Somehow they will always find a way to create something,” Muller Serreau told CNN Style. But Dior’s path was not always easy. “The New Look” is set during and immediately after World War II, and its visual elements reflect the austerity of the time in general.

Muller Serreau’s research for The New Look scoured the House of Dior’s archives for day, cocktail and evening dresses, and assembled 12 of the 70 outfits from the line that appear in the show, along with the hats, shoes, gloves and jewelry that go with them. Muller Serreau described her relationship with the fashion house as “collaborative,” with Dior’s archivists taking a keen interest in the process and being keen to reproduce certain looks over others to highlight the breadth and beauty of the New Look line.

(She also studied the work of the other designers featured in the show to get a feel for their aesthetics, both personally and professionally, and developed reinterpretations with her team accordingly.)

She strove to make the New Look recognizable to modern viewers by choosing outfits that were ahead of their time, such as the strikingly contemporary “Jungle” look – a leopard-print midi dress that, as its name suggests, was the first animal print model on the catwalk.

Since Dior still had the fabrics from the look, Muller Serreau was able to faithfully recreate the entire ensemble. Other looks have unfortunately not stood the test of time and now only exist in the form of sketches or fabric samples in Dior’s archives – although these also became important reference points.

From a costume designer’s perspective, The New Look offered Muller Serreau the opportunity to reflect fashion and cultural trends of the era on a broader scale: During the war years, clothes were “scarcer” because fabrics were very expensive, she explained. And they were also produced on a much smaller scale; while Chanel advocates “simplicity” and Dior imagines its designs being worn by “30 women,” this is a far cry from the luxury conglomerates of today.

While a second season has not yet been confirmed, the first season is just a drop in the ocean of Dior’s indelible influence on the fashion industry. However, Muller Serreau hinted at what possible future episodes of “The New Look” could include: Yves Saint Laurent came under Dior’s tutelage in the 1950s before revolutionizing women’s fashion again with his famous “Le Smoking” suit.

Although “The New Look” refers specifically to Dior, the fashion eras in which he and his contemporaries left their mark offer numerous new perspectives to explore.

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