The New Look on Apple TV Plus is a remarkable story following the lives of renowned fashion designers Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) and Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche) against the devastating backdrop of World War II.
The fifth epsiode of The New Look officially marks the halfway point of the season and opens with Christian Dior attending a musical performance by the iconic Édith Piaf with his lover Jacques.
During the concert, Piaf acknowledges that Paris was still in mourning after losing loved ones to the Nazis, and encourages anyone who has lost someone to the war to stand. While a great number of people in the room stand up, sharing their grief, Dior refuses to stand for his sister, Catherine, fully believing that she will one day return from the prison of war camp where she is being held.
After the emotional performance, Dior and Jaques go backstage and meet with Georges Vigouroux, another designer who asks Dior to become the head designer at Philippe et Gaston. But while Dior is flattered to be asked, he is still living in limbo while he waits to officially learn Catherine's fate. In fact, Lucien wants him to sign a contract that has been sitting on his desk for four and a half months but Dior refuses, knowing that if Catherine was to return he would need time off work to focus on her.
Coco Chanel's story, meanwhile is still playing out in Switzerland where she has moved to since fleeing Paris after her collaboration with the Nazis was revealed. She has had something of a fall from grace, hiding out in Switzerland and struggling to get her hands on her money after the French government refuses to release the cash across the border. Her lack of funds is troubling her as she is finding it hard to buy a new home and pay her driver.
Coco is also worried about her nephew, André who contracted tuberculosis during his time in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp. They call a doctor who tells them there isn't a lot more that can be done to help André unless he goes back to Paris where a doctor is doing experimental treatment which has some proven success.
But while Coco and André know he must go, Coco is forced to stay in Switzerland alone because she still can't return to Paris without fear of being arrested.
She soon has other dramas when she sees bottles of Chanel No.5 in a shop window in Switzerland and she is baffled about how it got there after production of her perfume stopped during the war. She discovers that her former business partners the Wertheimers have been producing her perfume and secretly selling it behind her back as revenge against all the Nazi collaborators who sold them out — including Coco.
She buys all 60 bottles that the shop has in stock, clearly with money that she doesn't actually have, and then decides to ship them back to her friend Henri in the south of France for testing. However, she hits another stumbling block when the bottles never make it out of Switzerland.
Having not paid her driver, Conrad, for months, he has set up a way to pay off his debts by staging a robbery of Coco's car, complete with the expensive perfumes in the boot. Soon Coco is being held at gunpoint by strangers, however, she manages to escape and has to hitchhike back to her hotel, where she arrives bedraggled and alone.
Back with Dior, we learn that as Lelong’s main designer, Chritian has been left with the job of interviewing new designers to replace Pierre Balmain after he left to set up his own couture house.
We are then introduced to Italian-born designer Pierre Cardin, who was born Pietro but changed his name when he moved to France. He turns out to be charismatic and wins Christian over almost immediately, making him laugh for the first time since Catherine's capture. Lelong isn't impressed with Cardin, but it is clear Dior is fond of the new arrival.
Soon Christian gets a call from his father telling him that Catherine has been found alive, wandering in Dresden after escaping a death march. Christian promises his dad he will go and meet his sister off the train and what follows is one of the most powerful scenes of the series so far. Once there, Christian is relieved to find Catherine's name is on the list of passengers arriving, however, he is warned that the journey is dangerous for the weak camp survivors and not all of them will make it alive.
There is a sense of hope as the families of the prisoners gather to wait for the train and soon they all start singing “La Marseillaise”, the French national anthem, as they try and get a glimpse of their loved ones. However, their hope soon turns to horror as the prisoners start to come through the door and the realisation of the hell they have been living hits.
But there is more heartache for Dior when Catherine isn't among the prisoners. Thankfully she is also not among the dead who have been brought off the train on stretchers and covered with sheets.
With Catherine still missing, Dior goes to see Baussac, the 'King of Cotton', about the job Georges offered, however, fed up with having his life on hold, Dior gives a heartfelt speech about bringing joy back to Paris after the war and asks not for the job, but for funding for his own couture house.
It's clear Baussac is impressed by his speech and although we don't see it on screen, it seems that Dior has had his wish granted. As he walks home, he takes a necklace that the clairvoyant gave him to ensure Catherine's safe return home and throws it into the river.
However, his world is turned upside down when he gets home and Jacques rushes to the door saying he has been desperately trying to get hold of him as Catherine has finally returned.
We see Dior head to her bedroom with a mixture of excitement and trepidation as he opens the door, and there is an emancipated Catherine on her bed, barely alive, but home once again.
The New Look is available to stream worldwide on Apple TV Plus.
