‘The New Look’: How Juliette Binoche Tackled the Stormy Life of Coco Chanel
(Warning: Spoilers for The New Look ahead.)
It’s hard to imagine a world where Coco Chanel’s (Juliette Binoche) name is not on a guest list. However, rejection did happen—and is swift—in a recent episode of Apple TV+ historical drama The New Look, when Coco tries to enter a lavish party at the luxury Swiss hotel she currently calls home.
At the end of WWII, friends and money were in short supply for the designer, who self-exiled from Paris after French authorities started to investigate her ties to the Nazis. Without her Parisian boutique, Coco lacked financial stability and threatened legal action against her former partners, the Wertheimers. So you’d think Coco would welcome a visitor from the past with open arms. But this critical juncture in her life, Coco needed to keep certain skeletons in her closet, and discretion certainly was not in fashion whenever socialite Elsa Lombardi (Emily Mortimer) stepped—or staggered—into a room, as she does in Episode 6 of the series.