Meet the Ruthless Characters in Apple TV+’s New Fashion Drama ‘La Maison’

PARIS — Prepare to meet the most dysfunctional families in fashion.

Giving the Roy family from “Succession” a run for their money, the Ledu and Rovel clans are at the center of the new 10-episode Apple TV+ series “La Maison,” hitting screens Friday.

Betrayal, backstabbing and bitchiness abound in this tale of feuding factions vying for control of a fictional French fashion house.

The brainchild of Alex Berger, the executive producer behind the hit French spy series “The Bureau,” the French-language show features a cast including Lambert Wilson, Carole Bouquet and Amira Casar as veteran fashion figures, as well as Zita Hanrot as the rising designer who crystalizes their rivalry.

The storyline recalls the legendary duel between real-life luxury magnates Bernard Arnault and François Pinault for control of Gucci in the 1990s.

Since then, Arnault has become one of the world’s richest men, underlining the growing economic clout of France’s luxury sector. While the series’ creators say they did not set out to skewer the industry, they did want to explore the darker side of a business built on selling dreams.

“We wanted to show that even in the 0.01 percent, the families are just as dysfunctional as our own,” Berger said in a joint interview with showrunners Valentine Milville and José Caltagirone.

“We were interested in this dichotomy between the glossy image and the ferocity of the relationships that underpin it,” Caltagirone said. “It’s like people’s obsession with royal families. In a way, it makes us feel closer to them. It’s reassuring to think they have problems too.”

The plot charts how Vincent Ledu, head of a century-old haute couture house rooted in lacemaking, falls from grace after a viral video spreads on social media. His muse and right-hand woman, Perle Foster, teams with emerging designer Paloma Castel to save the house of Ledu and make it relevant for Gen Z.

But danger lurks in the form of Diane Rovel, the ruthless head of the Rovel luxury group, who is hellbent on acquiring Maison Ledu by any means possible and tearing apart its founding family.

Viewers won’t fail to draw parallels between the characters and real-life fashion icons. Keen to make the show as realistic as possible, the writers consulted everyone from designers to seamstresses and fashion sociologists to get the details right.

“We approached it with the same level of care as a couture house does a collection,” Milville said. “We tried to create real identities for the brands and houses represented.”

With the help of costume designer Carine Sarfati, whose credits include the Netflix series “Call My Agent,” the show takes viewers behind the scenes to couture workshops and runway shows, with cameos by industry figures such as Balmain designer Olivier Rousteing, model Eva Herzigova and journalist Mademoiselle Agnès.

Sarfati brought in fashion designers to work alongside her usual team to make sure every element clicked, down to creating original logo buckles, buttons and linings for the clothes. Her handbag designer, Clara Ormières, previously worked for Hermès.

“When they tapped me for the project, it was super exciting because I love fashion, but also really stressful because it’s going to be scrutinized by people from the industry and we don’t have the same deadlines. We’re making this stuff a year, a year-and-a-half before the show is aired. Will it still work?” Sarfati said.

She was also concerned with viewer expectations following the runaway success of “Emily in Paris” and its multicolored wardrobe. “It was in the back of my mind, but we all agreed we didn’t want it to look cartoonish,” she said.

Berger said the show aims to understand the science of clothing. “It’s not a critique, it’s a snapshot of today,” he said. “You have to respect this world and at the same time, question it.”

WWD sat down with the cast of the show to talk about the inspiration for their characters and broach hot topics like rivalry, cancel culture and the environmental cost of clothes.

Carole Bouquet as Diane Rovel

As the former face of Chanel No.5 perfume and a longtime friend of Karl Lagerfeld, Bouquet knows the fashion industry inside out, but she said playing Rovel was a stretch.

“Nothing I’ve ever experienced in fashion resembles what we shot,” Bouquet said. “I usually just show up for the fun part. Unfortunately — though fortunately for me — I’m not familiar with the inner workings of power.”

Europe’s wealthiest woman, her character is referred to as the “she-wolf in a suit,” mirroring Arnault’s real-life nickname, “the wolf in cashmere.” But Rovel is also aware of another, less flattering moniker — “the fishwife” — which suggests less-than-glamorous origins.

Accordingly, her wardrobe reflects a constant desire to remain on top. Sarfati said she was inspired by L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who at the time of her death in 2017 was the world’s richest woman.

“Carole Bouquet often dresses in movies as she does in real life. I pushed to have a little fun and create a character that was very different,” Sarfati said. “It sometimes teeters on the verge of bad taste.”

The costume designer selected boldly colored outfits by brands including Valentino, Max Mara and Jil Sander, accessorized with oodles of gold Goossens costume jewelry. Rovel is always impeccably coiffed, with bright red lips and matching nails.

“She wants to broadcast her power,” Bouquet said. “We put a lot of effort into her look and I sometimes regretted it, because it required hours in the makeup chair, which I don’t enjoy. We had to do constant touch-ups between takes because I wanted her to be flawless at all times, which is unbearable. I’m not like that at all in real life,” she added emphatically.

While Bouquet said she doesn’t share her character’s naked ambition, she embraced her diabolical nature for the screen. “It’s very juicy to play a character like that,” the actress said with a smile. “It’s a question of empire: who’s going to reign?”

She was careful in addressing the topic of cancel culture, which topples the fictional couturier in the show, but has also engulfed Lagerfeld in posthumous controversy over his habit of delivering sharp-tongued asides — political correctness be damned.

While Bouquet understands the need to challenge wrongdoing, she lamented that criticism of public figures often turns into a witch hunt.

“I think it’s too violent, but at the same time, there are reasons for this. So I think it’s like a revolution that I don’t like, and it will eventually settle down,” she said. “There are times when it really goes too far, but you can’t make such an important course correction without some excesses.”

Lambert Wilson as Vincent Ledu

While Vincent Ledu’s storyline echoes the 2011 incident involving John Galliano, the character’s response to public shaming is less contrite than imperious, a reaction befitting the scion of a historic family — with the entitlement and jaw-dropping homes to match.

“In the series, there’s many clashes: generational clashes and social clashes. He’s an aristocrat, and it makes a very big difference. They know they have power,” noted Wilson. “I thought of Hubert de Givenchy, who seemed to be the epitome of all that.”

Sarfati’s mood board featured images of designers like Giorgio Armani and Haider Ackermann, but also the likes of Apple founder Steve Jobs or architect Norman Foster. But unlike those masters of minimalism, Wilson added his own flourish in the shape of a wig.

“I played with this notion of having this mane of silver hair,” said the “Matrix” star. “He’s a bit like a Roman emperor. Then it reunites one with the notion of the fallen king. He’s almost like a sort of a historical figure.”

Ledu uses only the color black in his designs, and his wardrobe is filled with dark pieces by the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Lemaire, Armani and Berluti. He wears bespoke spectacles from Maison Bonnet, the maker of Yves Saint Laurent’s famous glasses.

The plotline has the designer grappling with the realities of the modern-day fashion industry, including the need to generate a steady stream of content for social media. “I am amazed, because I knew a time when shows were prepared in silence and secrecy, and it was fun,” Wilson said.

“Imagine rehearsing a play and having to film yourself while you’re rehearsing, and it’s absolutely necessary to provide the audience with excerpts of you rehearsing. I mean, it would be impossible. We wouldn’t allow it. That’s the reality for the fashion world,” he continued.

Then there’s the ageism faced by veterans in an industry that thrives on newness.

“One of the topics of the series is also how it’s inevitable to be replaced, even though you are at the top of your art. The young will come,” Lambert said.

“It’s very painful,” he mused. “Even though you might respect the young, even though you might think that they are worthy, that they are talented and beautiful, it’s a tragedy to abandon your own place in the game.”

Amira Casar as Perle Foster

Casar is familiar with the role of fashion muse. Having been discovered by Helmut Newton as a teenager, she modeled for brands including Jean Paul Gaultier and Chanel before switching to acting, with roles in films such as “Call Me by Your Name” and “Saint Laurent,” in which she played Yves Saint Laurent’s righthand woman Anne-Marie Muñoz.   

In “La Maison,” her character Perle Foster has spent her life in the shadow of the Ledu family. When Vincent Ledu is forced to step down as creative director, she sets a new direction for the house with the help of Paloma Castel, cofounder of the Berlin-based sustainable fashion brand Doppel.

“She takes the power, and what is she going to do with that power as a woman was what I found interesting,” Casar explained.

Sarfati worked closely with the actress on her wardrobe, which mirrors Casar’s tough chic style. She wears brands like Alaïa, Comme des Garçons, Dries Van Noten and Lemaire, and is never without her chunky silver Bone cuff, designed by Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co.

“We had a lot of fun,” Sarfati said. “We weren’t afraid to try some pretty out-there looks, like the python Alaïa coat she wears to the Doppel fashion show.”

Though Foster is a fashion icon, modeled after real-life figures like Gaultier muse Farida Khelfa and Pierre Cardin’s chic acolyte Maryse Gaspard, Casar was sensitive to the intimate dimension of the character, who is initially idealized by Ledu and progressively taken for granted.

“She’s a very lonely person. She sacrificed her life to him, so I saw theater in there, I saw drama,” she explained. “She has no family. He’s her family. She’s his butler, she’s his everything.”

The series explores Foster’s fears about getting older, as the former model contemplates a return to the runway. Casar noted that although actors also face ageism, attitudes are evolving.

“It’s often other people projecting their fears on you about age, but I find things are changing, also because women are writing a lot for women,” she said. “That’s positive. There’s hope for older women.”

She’s less optimistic when it comes to social media, preferring not to engage with digital followers. “I’m sensitive and I think it would hurt me,” she said. “I’m not into comments.”

Though French cinema is going through a long-overdue #MeToo reckoning, Casar is also worried about the fallout from trial by internet, believing that everyone deserves a fair hearing in a court of law.

“I’ve been on sets where girls have been spoken to so badly, so badly, and nobody’s done a thing, nobody’s said anything, and you’ve had to swallow your pride,” she recalled. “So these things are happening, but we must not go into the extreme and behave like outlaws.”

Zita Hanrot as Paloma Castel

In contrast with the tightly controlled aesthetic of Maison Ledu, Castel’s label Doppel is all about upcyling. The character was inspired by emerging Paris designers like Marine Serre, Jeanne Friot, Clara Daguin and Victor Weinsanto, Sarfati said.

Hanrot, who first came to public attention in the 2015 film “Fatima,” said she initially found Castel too sullen. Watching “McQueen,” the 2018 documentary about Alexander McQueen, showed her that even tortured creatives can have an expansive, charismatic side.

She decided to play up the lively, impulsive nature of the militant designer, who’s not afraid to step into the limelight and upend Maison Ledu and the tortured family that runs it. “They definitely have a complex attitude to pleasure,” Hanrot observed. “They seem to be forever in mourning. There’s always this sense of guilt.”

Telegraphing her freewheeling approach, Castel piles on vintage ‘80s and ’90s designs by the likes of Gaultier and Claude Montana and adopts the dove as her emblem, creating a signature print for Ledu that nods to Serre’s real-life trademark crescent moon motif.

Hanrot said that while her character speaks out against issues like discrimination and waste, the series allows viewers to make up their own mind.

“There are several sides to fashion, because I also feel a lot of empathy for these designers who are searching for beauty on a visceral level,” she said. “There’s not one single truth, but rather, we try to represent different points of view. It’s nuanced and there’s no clear-cut answer.”

Pierre Deladonchamps as Victor Ledu

As Vincent Ledu’s younger brother, Victor Ledu has struggled to carve out his place at Maison Ledu. By marrying Diane Rovel’s daughter, he has defected to the enemy and is forever scheming to seize power.

“He’s between two chairs and I think that if he doesn’t choose one, he’ll fall,” said Pierre Deladonchamps, the French actor revealed in the 2013 homoerotic thriller “Stranger by the Lake.”

“He’s seeking recognition and rehabilitation, since we learn in the series that he’s unwittingly responsible for a family tragedy. I get the impression he always feel guilty and he wants to make amends and show he’s a good person, but everything he does suggests otherwise, so no one wants to love or trust him. He sabotages himself,” he added.

Deladonchamps compared the dynamic between the two brothers to the conflict between Britain’s Prince William and Prince Harry.

After playing a worker struggling to save his company in “The Takeover,” the actor enjoyed the temporary trappings of luxury that came with his role in “La Maison,” including sports cars, designer suits and spectacular homes.

“It’s pretty exhilarating. You’re like a kid in a candy store, but even so, I was happy to go home at the weekend to a life that aligns more closely with my values. I do think you can easily get used to luxury and opulence. What’s important is to keep things in perspective and to never forget where you’re from, wherever that might be,” he said.

Antoine Reinartz as Robinson Ledu

It’s tempting to dismiss the nephew of Vincent Ledu as an afterthought, but Robinson Ledu — frustrated designer and head of PR and influence at Maison Ledu — ends up playing a crucial role in the plot.

Reinartz, who recently appeared in the Oscar-winning film “Anatomy of a Fall,” knows designers like Julien Dossena and Nicolas Di Felice and initially planned to borrow their low-key look. But Sarfati wanted the character’s clothes to signal his struggle for autonomy, so instead, she took her cues from Dan Levy’s extroverted style.

Robinson’s brightly patterned sweaters and colorful prints stand out in a sea of black at Maison Ledu. “It’s a form of resistance and a declaration of freedom,” Sarfati said.

To research the role, Reinartz delved into French newspaper Le Monde’s series “Successions,” which tells the stories of dynasties like the Hermès and Rothschild families.

“This guy is reduced to being an heir, so he has no sense of self because he has no idea what he deserves,” he said. “He lives in a world where everyone is gay, where it’s out in the open and accepted, but he doesn’t really flourish in his relationships either. There is no love.”

Ultimately, the character is tempted to sever his family ties in a bid to carve his own path. “At the same time, renouncing your heritage is an illusion. You cannot erase what you were born with,” Reinartz said.