In Episode 4 of Apple TV+’s The New Look, Lucien Lelong (performed by John Malkovich), head of the eponymous couture home that dominated Parisian vogue for many years, presents one among his employees designers, Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn), with a doll constructed of bent wire.

“No, it’s not a joke,” Lelong asserts. “It’s the way forward for French vogue.”

It was the autumn of 1944, and the earlier June, Paris had been liberated from practically 4 years of Nazi occupation. Morale was wobbly, and the town was assembling itself anew whereas the warfare continued on. For the Parisian vogue trade—which, pre-war, had been the ultimate phrase in vogue—rehabilitation was dire. As depicted in The New Look, couturiers had one among two decisions: designing for the wives or girlfriends of Nazis (broadly, the one couture patrons permitted on the time), or shut store altogether. Export of any sort—clothes, sketches, and even sartorial concepts—was completely restricted. Parisian vogue existed in a Nazi-sealed vacuum.

With the liberation, nevertheless, got here a feverish inventive launch. Couturiers regained their means to craft, design, and promote freely and, in doing so, disseminate their concepts to malls and wardrobes the world over. And, to everybody’s shock and delight, a few of the first our bodies to showcase these post-occupation designs had been 27-inch-tall dolls, offered as a part of a touring exhibition dubbed the “Théâtre de la Mode,” or Theater of Trend.