As Maisie Williams graces our screens playing Christian Dior’s heroic sister Catherine in anew TV series, she talks to Justine Picardie –on whose book the character is based – about patriotism, family and the triumph of love over adversity
WHEN I ARRIVE AT THE FASHIONABLE MAYFAIR RESTAURANT where I am due to have lunch with Maisie Williams, I start worrying that she will be instantly recognised: the Twenty Two is filled with the chatter of a chic crowd, and there’s a throng at the entrance, too. Given her status as a global celebrity (thanks to her starring role as Arya Stark in the blockbuster television series Game of Thrones) it seems likely that she’ll attract attention. But Williams slips inside, unnoticed by anyone but me, disguised by a pair of plain, round-rimmed wire spectacles and an anonymous-looking black padded jacket over jeans. It is almost as if she has learnt the art of undercover espionage from the part she has inhabited for a year: Catherine Dior, a heroine of the French Resistance during World War II, portrayed by Williams in the forthcoming 10-part Apple TV+ series The New Look.
Williams’ character in the show is based on my book, Miss Dior, which explores the previously unknown story of Christian Dior’s beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his creative vision in the aftermath of the Nazi occupation of Paris. Until now, Williams and I have never met; yet our shared absorption in this subject gives an unusual emotional intensity to our encounter today. ‘Thank you so much for doing this,’ she says to me, as she sits down at the table. ‘I’m so excited to finally meet you. When I was filming the show, I listened to your voice every night for a year – reading the audio version of Miss Dior.’ She tells me that my book has been her constant companion – ‘it’s still beside my bed’ – and that she feels as if she accompanied me on my lengthy journeys in search of Catherine Dior, from her childhood home in Normandy to Paris, and onwards to Germany, where she was imprisoned by the Nazis at Ravensbrück concentration camp. ‘I was seeing through your eyes, and discovering the way that you really had immersed yourself in Catherine’s world. And by reading your book, I cut myself off from the rest of the world.’
She won the role in February 2022 and it was filmed until the end of that year. ‘It was a long job, and it was amazing; my whole life moved to Paris. It was hard work, but it was such an honour to do this part, and it became all-consuming. This was
