Within the first episode of The New Look, Todd A. Kessler’s shiny new Apple TV+ interval drama charting the epic rivalry between Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, we meet not solely the feuding designers (as performed by a grizzled Ben Mendelsohn and a glamorous Juliette Binoche) but in addition these of their illustrious circle, together with couturier Lucien Lelong (John Malkovich), his then design assistant Pierre Balmain (Thomas Poitevin), and Chanel’s German lover, the Nazi-affiliated Hans Günther von Dincklage (Claes Bang). However, there’s one character who shortly emerges as some of the fascinating: Christian Dior’s heroic youthful sister, Catherine Dior.

We meet her in 1943, three years into the Nazi occupation of Paris, as she, embodied by Maisie Williams, is accosted by officers who demand to see her papers. When she flees, they chase her and pin her in opposition to a wall—just for her to then flip the tables on them. Two members of the French Resistance all of a sudden seem and shoot the troopers, and Catherine, startlingly composed, escapes with them. You understand that she was by no means the damsel in misery—she’d merely set a entice that the Nazis walked into. She is a lady who, regardless of all of the chaos round her, appears to be absolutely in command of her personal future.

However who was the true Catherine Dior? What was her life really like throughout the Second World Struggle? And the way did she go on to affect the work of her brother? Because the present continues to air, we current a full breakdown under.

Born in 1917 in Granville, in northwestern France, Catherine grew up the youngest of 5 kids born to industrialist Maurice Dior and his spouse, Madeleine. Maurice managed a agency which specialised in producing fertilizer, and grew the enterprise into successful, quickly shifting his rising household right into a grand villa. (Their candy-colored mansion now homes the Musée Christian Dior.) Nevertheless, tragedy was simply across the nook: Madeleine died in 1931 and, quickly after, an financial downturn and failed actual property ventures decimated the household’s fortune. Maurice’s remaining belongings had been liquidated, the corporate bought, and the household pressured to vacate their stately dwelling in favor of a dilapidated farmhouse in Provence. There, Catherine supported the household by rising inexperienced beans and peas; she would stay green-fingered her complete life.