In Apple TV+’s The New Look, audiences are introduced to the people behind the now-familiar names adorning storefronts along Fifth Avenue and the Champs-Élysées—Balenciaga, Dior, Balmain, Chanel. Set during the Nazi occupation of Paris, the show reveals how those designers endured the stringent restrictions placed on the fashion industry at the time (the Nazis halted export and foreign communication of any kind), and, in certain cases, were made to collaborate with the Nazis. However, as The New Look captures Gabrielle Chanel’s highly controversial dealings with the Third Reich, we’re introduced to a new figure.
In episode two of the series, Chanel (played by Juliette Binoche) is pressured by the Nazis to use her slight connection to Winston Churchill (a romance with the Duke of Westminster brought her into Churchill’s circle) to help broker peace between Germany and Great Britain. As it’s portrayed in the show, her arm is twisted to deliver a letter to the prime minister—a real-life operation that the Nazis (among them, Chanel’s lover Hans Günther von Dincklage) dubbed Modellhut, and conducted behind Adolf Hitler’s back—and she trusts one person to help her: Elsa Lombardi.
The New Look takes a rather sympathetic view of Chanel’s actions (for an altogether different one, read Hal Vaughan’s damning book Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War), and while the series is based on actual events, separating fact from fiction in this case is no easy task. Elsa Lombardi (played by Emily Mortimer) didn’t actually exist—but Vera Bate Lombardi was a very real, very complex associate of Chanel’s. Some of Elsa’s antics align with Vera’s, but others recall another real-life friend of Chanel’s: Misia Sert. It’s a curious choice for the show, which is otherwise largely faithful to the historical record.
Per Binoche, in an interview with The Daily Beast: “Elsa in the TV show is Vera Bate [Lomabardi], who was an [Englishwoman] from an aristocratic branch, and Misia Sert, who was originally Polish, was an excellent pianist, had three different husbands, was an amazing artist, and would educate Chanel and bring her into the world she was living in.”
Who Was The New Look’s Elsa Lombardi?
In the series, Elsa—whom we first meet tipsily sipping Champagne while sitting in a bathtub—unwittingly accompanies Chanel on a trip to Madrid, where Churchill is meant to be stationed, in order to deliver him a letter from the Nazis. Chanel believes that her friend’s presence in Madrid will ensure that Churchill sees her; she describes Elsa as “an illegitimate child of the Royal family,” and Churchill as having a “soft spot” for her. All the while, Elsa is under the impression that Chanel is traveling to Madrid in order to scout the location for a new boutique. On arriving in Spain, however, she realizes something is amiss and gets to Churchill first, sharing with the Prime Minister’s office that she suspects Chanel is working with the Nazis. In the end, Chanel never meets with the British PM, never delivers the letter, and Elsa is not seen in the series for several more episodes.
When Elsa finally resurfaces in episode six, Chanel has exiled herself in Switzerland following the end of the occupation, fearful her relationship with the Nazis could lead to her persecution. Elsa, meanwhile, ends up overdosing on morphine in Chanel’s hotel room, as the show flashes back to their shared youth in Moulins, France, where they performed in nightclubs together.
In real life, however, Vera was Chanel’s companion in Operation Modellhut, while Misia grappled with drug addiction.
Who was Vera Bate Lombardi?
Born Vera Nina Arkwright in London in 1883, Vera could be considered royal-adjacent, given her mother’s second marriage to George William Adolphus FitzGeorge (the great-grandson of King George III of the United Kingdom). Vera’s first marriage was to an American, Frederick Blantford Bate, in 1916, after which she wed Alberto Lombardi, a member of the Italian Fascist Party.
Vera was an active sportswoman and equestrian who ran in aristocratic circles, becoming a valuable associate of Chanel’s. At the time, the designer was keen on showing her couture to deep-pocketed Englishwomen, and not only was Vera an embodiment of the modern “Chanel woman,” but she also had impressive contacts. She’d go on to work with Chanel as a publicist before doing a stint with couturier Edward Molyneux.
In 1943, while living in Rome with her second husband, Vera was suspected of spying for the British Secret Service and spent a week in a women’s prison in Rome. Then, about a year later, she’d find herself with Chanel in Madrid for Operation Modellhut—though Vera would ultimately thwart their meeting with Winston Churchill by exposing Chanel as a Nazi intermediary to British officials. After that, she spent a year stranded in Madrid—travel into Axis Italy was heavily restricted at the time—and unable to return to her home in Rome until 1945, when permission was granted by Churchill himself.
After Modellhut, it’s unclear how close she remained with Chanel; associating with the designer no longer benefited Vera’s reputation. She would die in Rome in 1948.
Who was Misia Sert?
The Russian-born Misia Sert purportedly met Chanel in 1917; the two shared a convent education and a profound love of the arts. Misia was both an artist and a patron—she was a professional pianist but also, notably, gave large sums of money to Sergei Diaghilev, who would go on to establish the Ballets Russes. Misia, in turn, became actively involved in the management of the Ballets Russes, and Chanel famously designed the costumes for their 1929 ballet Le Train Bleu. (Chanel would also enjoy a fleeting tryst with composer Igor Stravinsky.)
If Vera hoisted Chanel up within London’s aristocratic echelon, Misia would be her entree to Paris’s bohemian set. In “My Love Affair With Chanel,” a multi-part series published in the New York Social Diary in 2020, model turned designer Jackie Rogers recounted her conversations with Chanel, writing that “Misia had introduced Chanel to the top names in Parisian society which greatly increased Chanel’s chances of success. She also had a serious morphine addiction. Chanel developed one as well, although far less extreme than Misia’s, which would eventually kill her. Meanwhile, when Chanel would leave me at night she would go upstairs for her ‘aperitif’ of sedol, a type of morphine.” Misia—who is never directly referenced in The New Look—passed away in Paris in 1950.
