Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for The New Look episodes 1-3.

Summary

• The New Look explores the rivalry between Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, with Coco disrespecting Dior while he remains indifferent towards her.
• Christian Dior faced criticism for selling dresses to the wives and girlfriends of Nazis, while his sister Catherine worked as a Resistance fighter.
• Coco Chanel secretly aligned herself with Nazis and used her connections to live a life of luxury, while Dior refused to cross moral boundaries and maintained a distance from Nazi clients.

Apple TV+ drama series about the rise of the famous French fashion designer Christian Dior released its first three episodes on February 14. The New Look will have 10 episodes and the first three established what Christian and his rival Coco Chanel were doing during the Nazi occupation of during World War II. They only share one scene in The New Look’s first three episodes, but the story sets up some interesting interactions for future episodes once Christian establishes himself by founding his house DIOR.

The New Look tells the true story of Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, and their many contemporaries from his beginnings as a designer to his sudden death in 1957. The New Look cast take on the roles of real-life people, some whose names are more recognizable than others through their contributions to the fashion industry or their involvement in World War II. Now that The New Look episodes 1 through 3 have tackled the wartime years, the next seven episodes are free to focus on fashion and the famous rivalry it created.

12 Coco Chanel Doesn’t Respect Christian Dior

Their rivalry seemed one-sided

The New Look episode 1 began in Paris in 1955 following Coco Chanel’s comeback after she closed her boutique at the start of World War II. Coco was giving an interview while Christian Dior gave a lecture to a group of students at Sorbonne University, where he was being honored. When asked about Dior, Coco said, “he doesn’t deserve his praise” and that she felt sorry for all the students who had to “suffer him.” Coco told the press, “Christian Dior ruined French couture, and I’m coming back to save it.”

However, this rivalry appears to be one-sided, as Christian gave a very different response when asked about Chanel. Regarding Coco’s claim that she was going to regain her throne as couture royalty, he simply said, “I guess I will have to find somewhere else to sit.” Why their rivalry began and how Dior may have really felt about her behind the scenes has yet to be explored in The New Look but will likely be a major focus in the episodes.

11 Christian Dior Sold Dresses To Nazi Wives & Girlfriends

A student called him out

Another question Dior was asked by the students concerned his work during World War II and the German occupation of . While Coco had closed up shop at the start of the war, Dior, who was working for Lucien Lelong at the time, continued making dresses. Since he specialized in gowns and it was wartime, it was easy to deduce that his clients were the wives and girlfriends of Nazis.

Christian told the students that Chanel had her own business and an established name, while he was a “nobody" working for someone else. Dior called the days of occupation “the darkest days of our lives.” He added, “there is the truth, but there is always another truth that lives behind it” before The New Look flashed back to Paris in 1943, three years into the Nazi occupation, to explore that truth.

10 Catherine Dior Was A French Resistance Fighter

She fell in love with a founding Resistance member

In 1941, Christian’s younger sister Catherine Dior met Hervé des Charbonneries, a founding Resistance member. After falling in love with him, she ed the movement herself. She worked as a bike messenger delivering pamphlets and maps to the Resistance fighters and a scene in The New Look episode 1 even showed her luring two Nazis to their death.

Like the students, the Resistance fighters judged Christian for making gowns for Nazi balls. Catherine told her brother not to make the dresses anymore, but he pointed out that they needed the money, which went almost entirely to Catherine and the Resistance. Despite Christian’s work, he was privately very ive of the Resistance, and the only time he ever expressed having issues with Catherine’s work was when it put her in danger.

9 Coco Aligned Herself With Nazis

She dated a German military officer

On the other hand, Coco privately aligned herself with Nazis. Her nephew, André Palasse, had been taken as a prisoner of war in , and Coco used her influence with her German friends to have him released. This included Baron Louis de Vaufreland, who went with Coco to help pick her nephew up from the prisoner of war camp in The New Look. The exchange was meant to be kept a secret for Coco’s reputation.

Even more problematic was the romantic relationship she developed with Hans Günther von Dincklage, known in The New Look by the nickname Spatz, an officer in the German military intelligence. Through their relationship, Coco was able to stay at the Ritz Paris, which was also a German headquarters, and remain in high society. Coco’s business may have been closed at the start of the war, but her personal relationships with Nazi officers allowed her to live a life of luxury.

8 Cristóbal Balenciaga Refused To Work With Nazis

He was more established than Christian

While working for Lelong in The New Look, Dior saw making dresses for the wives and girlfriends of Nazis as a necessary evil. Like many others who judged Dior for his work, Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga told his friends that he refused to work with Nazis. Balenciaga was one of 60 couture houses allowed to stay open during the Nazi occupation of Paris. As he’d been established for years and was still able to work, Balenciaga was in a more privileged position than Dior regarding choosing clients.

7 The Nazis Used Coco To Try And Get Close To Winston Churchill

She needed Elsa Lombardi’s help

With Chanel's business closed and her Jewish business partner having fled to the United States, the Nazis used their anti-Semitic rhetoric to sympathize with her in The New Look. The Germans wanted her to open a house in Berlin, so the city could become the new couture capital of the world. They promised that they’d help her get Chanel back in exchange for a connection with Winston Churchill, whom she was friends with.

However, Coco hadn’t talked to Churchill in years and had to rely on an old friend, Elsa Lombardi, to get her to meet with them in Madrid. Elsa had married a member of the Italian Fascist Party and Spatz arranged for her to be brought from Italy to meet with Coco. While Coco said she was reaching out to ask her to partner with her when Chanel opened a new house in Milan, Elsa resented her old friend, as she believed she'd stolen her business idea.

When it came time to meet with Churchill in The New Look, Elsa told him that Coco was collaborating with the Nazis and that she had kidnapped her from Italy. After having heard this, Churchill decided not to come to Milan. This meant that Coco couldn’t fulfill her end of the deal with Walter Schellenberg, the head of Nazi foreign intelligence, and since she wanted to stay in , she could not work during the war.

6 Christian Refused To Meet With A Nazi’s Girlfriend

He had a moral line he wouldn’t cross

Though Christian reluctantly made dresses for the girlfriends and wives of Nazis during the occupation, he did set up moral boundaries he wouldn’t cross in The New Look. One of his clients, a girlfriend of a Nazi, was insistent on meeting with him for fittings. Dior repeatedly turned her down, not wanting to have to interact with her. This showed just how hard it was for Christian to make dresses knowing who was going to be wearing them and how important it was for him to maintain a distance from Lelong’s clients.

5 Catherine Was Sent To A Concentration Camp

Christian desperately tried to find and save her

While Christian refused to meet with the Nazi’s girlfriend, he was given no other choice when there was a tear in her dress the night of a ball. When he finally saw her, she revealed that she had torn the dress on purpose to be able to meet him. She warned him that the Gestapo was looking for Catherine, but it was too late, as she’d already been taken and was being tortured in interrogation. Though Christian desperately tried to find her, they eventually moved her to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Christian did everything he could, meeting with the Resistance to see if they had any information before eventually turning to his client to see if her Nazi boyfriend could help her. They told him to bring money, so he stole fabric from Lelong to try and help her. When Lelong caught him, he helped his friend rather than firing him. The Nazi could only tell them what camp Catherine had taken her to, but could not help them any further.

An argument ensued between the Nazi and Jean, a Resistance fighter who had insisted on attending the meeting despite Christian being told to come alone. When the Nazi shot and killed Jean, Hervé returned the favor. Christian was devastated, believing that Hervé had also killed his only potential way of saving his sister.

4 Schellenberg Wanted To Be With Coco

She rejected his advances

As rumors swirled that the Nazis would be leaving , Coco scrambled to make sure that she was not among the Resistance's list of enemies of . This would require her to give up the names of the Nazi officers she knew in The New Look, including Spatz. At the same time, Schellenberg arranged a meeting with Coco and made romantic advances at her, asking her to leave Paris and be with him in . She rejected him and their conversation solidified her decision to give the Resistance the names they were asking for.

3 Spatz Left Coco Behind In

They betrayed each other

When Coco visited Schellenberg, he told her that Spatz was married and that he’d ordered him to seduce her. This revelation made it easier for Coco to betray the man she’d fallen in love with, outing his true identity to the Resistance. Spatz told Coco that he was fleeing and asked her to come with him, which she agreed to do so the Resistance could find him. However, he fled without her, and it seemed as though she would remain on the list.