Maisie Williams Brings Catherine Dior to Life in 'The New Look'
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When Christian Dior presented his debut haute couture collection in 1947, introducing the world to the "New Look," the scent of Miss Dior, a fragrance named for his sister Catherine, helped to set the mood. But Catherine was more than just the inspiration for her brother’s perfume. As Todd A. Kessler put it: "There really is no Christian Dior, as a designer, without Catherine." And the siblings' relationship is front and center in the new Apple TV+ series.
Set during and after World War II, the show, which was created by Kessler, tells the story of Catherine's experience as a French resistance fighter who survived being interned at Ravensbrück concentration camp. "Catherine is a tremendous underpinning to Christian Dior—his talent and his inspiration and creation," Kessler tells Town & Country. "It was a hugely impactful thing for him to experience that his sister—first fighting the Nazis as a resistance fighter, then being taken—the experience of that sibling relationship as being key to Christian's identity and what war does to people's understanding of their own identity."
In the drama, Maisie Williams, who rose to fame playing Arya Stark in eight seasons of Game of Thrones, takes on the role of Catherine.
Her story—her survival—is little-known, until now. "I feel proud that she is such an integral part of this show," Williams tells T&C. "She's not someone who we think about when we think the Dior fashion house, and yet, she was such a huge inspiration for Christian in his personal life. What I really hope is that people learn about her, research her further, and she doesn't just become another woman who's forgotten from history—and she is given the space within our consciousness for the life that she lived." Here, Williams spoke with T&C about playing Catherine, understanding her motivations for working in the resistance, and how she hopes to do more period dramas in the future.
What drew you to this story?
Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture
amazon.com
$25.66
I love fashion, and I was so excited at the prospect of this show called The New Look. It was a collection that I was already very familiar with, and the impact that it's had on fashion even today—and the silhouette that I even just love to wear. I really came to it from a fashion standpoint. Then, like these things go, I started to learn more about human story behind Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and realized that Catherine is such a massive part of Christian's brand and his inspiration. She's not really someone that we think about at all when we think about him. I felt compelled to contribute to bringing her story back into the public consciousness, and not forget about her role in history. I read this amazing book, Miss Dior by Justine Picardie, and I learned far more about Catherine's story than we could ever show on screen in our limited 10 episodes. It all just kind of started to weave together this character that I played.
The first few episodes follow Catherine’s work in the resistance, before her capture and internment at Ravensbrück. What was your research process like to understand her mindset?
A lot of [my research was] drawn from other people who spoke about their experiences, because Catherine never spoke about her life publicly. From her family, she didn't speak about it much with them either. I really tried to empathize with these stories that we did have. And try to imagine as much as possible what a young woman of that time is going through.
Catherine's a very similar age to my nan, who spoke a lot about her time during the war. She was at home in the UK, but spoke about war in this way that was so familiar. It's your life at the time, right? We look back on these parts of history and the monumental moments that that happened—but when you live through it, you just have no choice but to keep living.
Really taking it away from everything I knew about the impact of this particular war and just bringing it back to a human story of a girl who is desperately trying to do the right thing and will put herself in danger to try to stop other people from being in danger. I like to think that that's what humanity is like, that's what we're like, and that's how we want to care for one another. So, bringing it back into something a little smaller and a little more digestible was really important for me.
Why do you think that she never spoke about her life or herself in public?
There's an element of seeing the transparent atrocities firsthand that humans are capable of doing that even speaking those things into the world again feels like you're bringing the evil back to the world. There's a lot that we can learn from telling these stories, but I think when you put yourself into the body of a survivor, having seen all of that, you just want it to disappear. Sometimes, it can sometimes bring more harm than good to relight those atrocities. I guess she just felt, in her life that to find peace, she needed to let it go.
Many people will be introduced to Catherine’s heroism through this show. What do you hope they take away from her life story?
What I learned about Catherine's life is that she ended up going back to Callian, and growing roses, and selling them to the perfumeries all around the world. For her. In her own eyes, that was not really a symbolic choice. She was someone who was incredibly gifted and had "the nose," the perfumer's sense of smell and that's why she ended up doing that. But for me, looking at that in a very poetic way, for this woman to have gone through so much and then return to the earth and to grow something beautiful from the dirt. That's just just something really beautiful to take away from her.
Has there anything about Catherine that's stayed with you since wrapping?
So much. I return to this book [Miss Dior] a lot. It's almost like a lullaby of sorts. She was such an incredible woman who never really saw herself as like a hero per se, but really would stop at nothing before she went against her country or against what she believed was the right thing.
It's an inspiring message to all of us: There's things about the world that we dislike, but the more we realize that we make up the world, just as much as other people, and we have that power—the more we can connect, the better the world can become.
Does your experience working on this period drama make you want to do more historical shows?
Absolutely! As a fan of fashion, I would love to do things in the sixties. Whenever I've worked with any makeup artists or hair people, they've always said, 'you should do the forties.' This kind of forties, fifties. So it's one of them ticked off. But even going further back, I'd love to. I think it's so much fun.
The first three episodes of the New Look are now streaming on Apple TV+. Watch now
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