IN FASHION: While Hollywood productions have largely come to a grinding halt with actors and screenwriters striking shoulder-to-shoulder, Apple TV+ is planning to roll out a 10-part family drama about an iconic French fashion house.
Perhaps taking a page from Max’s “Succession,” which racked up 2.9 million finale viewers, the yet-to be-released “La Maison” will revolve around a family dynasty that runs a contemporary luxury fashion house and the lives of powerful families. The premise of that may sound a little familiar to industry types, but the storyline is fictitious.
The hourlong episodes will be headlined by César Award winners Carole Bouquet for “En thérapie,” Zita Hanrot for “Fatima,” Pierre Deladonchamps for “Stranger by the Lake,” and Antoine Reinartz for “Anatomy of a Fall.” César Award nominees are also in abundance in the project including Lambert Wilson, Amira Casar, Anne Consigny, Florence Loiret Caille and Ji-Min Park.
The behind-the-scenes show hinges on a scandal that is set off by a viral video featuring the company’s lead designer, Wilson’s Vincent LeDu, whose exit leaves his family in the lurch. Enter LeDu’s former assistant Perle Foster (who is portrayed by Casar) who sidles up to an emerging designer to recreate and rescue the century-old Masion LeDu, while returning the namesake family to the upper echelons of the fashion landscape.
“La Maison” was developed by showrunners José Caltagirone and Valentine Milville, and is based on an idea by executive producer Alex Berger. The series is being directed by award-winning filmmakers Fabrice Gobert of “The Returned” and Daniel Grou, who is known as “Podz” and worked on “Lupin.” Shooting in France Thursday, Grou was unavailable to discuss “La Maison,” according to his agent Nathalie Brunet.
While designers and major brands have been busy churning out content, fashion-centric related entertainment has reeled in viewers for years. Millions have and continue to tune into series like “Emily in Paris,” “Sex and the City,” “Halston,” “And Just Like That,” “Project Runway,” and “Queer Eye,” among others, as well as feature films like “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Clueless.” The global appeal of fashion is clear, given the more than $326.7 million that “The Devil Wears Prada” grossed at the box office, well above its budget of $41 million.
One of the few dozen independent films that will continue to be shot during the ongoing strike is “Mother May.” Anne Hathaway, who played a bumbling fashion magazine assistant opposite Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada,” is gearing up for a bit of a role reversal. In the David Lowery-directed “Mother Mary,” Hathaway portrays a pop star involved with an iconic fashion designer. It was written by Charli XCX and Jack Antanoff.
Meanwhile, former fashion designer and now acclaimed author Douglas Stuart is contributing to the fashion film sector. His Booker Prize-winning debut title “Sugar Bain” is being adapted by the BBC for A24. The page-turner borrowed from his Glasgow upbringing by his alcoholic mother and her never-realized life of glamour. In an interview earlier this month, Stuart noted something that the publishing world is lacking — more books about fashion.