Todd A. Kessler and Lorenzo di Bonaventura (‘The New Look’) on Chanel and Dior: ‘She was the queen of fashion until he knocked her off her perch’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“She was the queen of fashion until he knocked her off her perch and then he became the king of fashion,” declares “The New Look” executive producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura about the two fashion titans at the center of the Apple TV+ prestige drama. For our recent webchat with the producer and his “The New Look” collaborator; creator and showrunner Todd A. Kessler, di Bonaventura adds, “Todd’s original intent was really around the more you read the more you realized their names were colliding, so it became inescapable in a way not to do the two sides,” he says, with Kessler adding that their story was all the more compelling because it emerged out of the “darkest period of the 20th century history; out of that was this explosion of creativity and life and the ability to live again, to dream again, to have fantasy, and to create.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
SEE Exclusive Video Interview: Juliette Binoche (‘The New Look’)
“The New Look” was created by Kessler, a seven-time Emmy nominee for “The Sopranos” and “Damages.” The Apple TV+ prestige drama explores the rivalry between a then-emerging fashion designer Christian Dior, who rose to stardom with his first collection in 1947, and established designer Chanel during World War II-era Paris. Oscar winner Juliette Binoche (“The English Patient” headlines the 10-part AppleTV+ prestige drama as Chanel alongside Emmy winner Ben Mendelsohn (“Bloodline”) who stars as Dior, with two-time Emmy nominee Maisie Williams (“Game of Thrones”) co-starring as Dior’s younger sister and muse Catherine Dior. The ensemble also features two-time Oscar nominee and Emmy winner John Malkovich as French couturier Lucien Lelong, Claes Bang as Nazi spy Hans von Dincklage, and eight-time Oscar nominee and three-time Emmy and Tony winner Glenn Close as fashion doyenne Carmel Snow.
“Fundamentally what the show is about the decisions that both Coco Chanel and Christian Dior made during the Nazi occupation of Paris, as to how to survive and how to deal with the Nazis,” Kessler explains. “The choices that each of them made is one level of what that rivalry is, because Chanel was in a position to be able to close her workshop, refused to design for Nazis. Dior was a younger, unknown designer, who was basically using the money that he made designing for Nazi wives and girlfriends in Paris to help fund his younger sister, who was in the Resistance. Meanwhile Chanel is living at the Ritz, is dating someone affiliated with the Nazis, and goes on missions for the Nazis, but yet refuses to design for them. There’s a rivalry in their approach and in their design aesthetic. There’s also a rivalry in how they created. Dior was an obsessive sketcher. Chanel never sketched. Chanel created clothes on models. Dior didn’t like to touch the models. There’s a there’s a difference in creativity, there’s a difference in how they move through the world politically, and there’s just a difference in who they are as people.”
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