Glenn Close will play legendary Harper’s Bazaar editor in chief in “The New Look”
One of fashion’s brightest luminaries — who cemented Harper’s Bazaar’s legacy as an industry leader — will be brought to life in Apple TV+’s new series The New Look.
The streaming service announced today that Glenn Close will play Carmel Snow, editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar from 1934 to 1958, in the 10-episode historical drama. Close’s casting marks her reunion with series creator and executive producer Todd A. Kessler, whom she also worked with on the Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning Damages.
“The truth is, I would do anything for [Todd] after experiencing his brilliance as a writer/director/collaborator on Damages,” Close tells Bazaar in an exclusive interview. “I was thrilled when he asked me to step into the daunting shoes of Carmel Snow in The New Look, and only hope I do justice to one of the truly iconic, game-changing figures in the history of fashion.”
In the first photos to emerge from Close’s performance as Snow, the actor exudes the same elegant poise as the woman who coined the phrase the show takes its name from. After witnessing Christian Dior’s first-ever show in the spring of 1947, Snow famously encapsulated the excitement over the designer’s upheaval of contemporary sartorial standards by telling him, “It’s quite a revolution, dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look.”
With art director Alexey Brodovitch and fashion editor Diana Vreeland, Snow’s tenure at Bazaar “really reinvented the fashion magazine as we know it,” says Bazaar editor at large Stephen Mooallem.
Snow’s self-proclaimed mission to create a magazine for “well-dressed women with well-dressed minds” made Bazaar a launchpad for those who, like Dior, had a new way of looking at style and artistry. She helped propel the careers of some of today’s most revered creatives, including Richard Avedon and Truman Capote. And in a time when men dominated the field of fashion photography, Snow introduced to the world the immeasurable talents of female photographers like Diane Arbus, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Toni Frissell, and Lillian Bassman.
Fashion breathed under her touch, too. While most fashion magazines at the time staged photo shoots in stilted studios, Snow took her editorials outdoors, a revolutionary choice that allowed the clothes and models to move in a way that readers weren’t yet familiar with.
“She really viewed fashion through a modern lens and looked at the possibilities for women as endless after a period when fashion magazines were very prescriptive and narrow in the way they viewed women’s lives,” Mooallem says.
Snow also helmed Bazaar through the cataclysmic World War II, which redefined every facet of life as people knew it. During this time, the pages of Bazaar reflected the shift in priorities, featuring American brands that relied on industrial fabrics like denim, and that designed slimmer silhouettes due to material shortages. It’s possible we’ll see that shift portrayed in The New Look, which will follow designers Dior, Coco Chanel, Pierre Balmain, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and others, following the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940.
Close’s inclusion in The New Look rounds out a star-studded ensemble, which also includes Ben Mendelsohn as Dior, Juliette Binoche as Chanel, Maisie Williams as Christian’s sister Catherine Dior, John Malkovich as couturier Lucien Lelong, Emily Mortimer as Vera Lombardi, and Claes Bang as Spatz. The first three episodes will premiere on Apple TV+ on February 14, 2024, with a new episode coming out every Wednesday after that through April 3.
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