The publicity shots below are a first glimpse of a lavish new BBC costume drama, writes David Wigg.
Set in Paris after the Second World War, The Collection is a big-budget, eight-part series, understood to have cost £2 million per episode, the same as the BBC hit War And Peace.
But licence payers hoping to enjoy the new series are in for a shock. They won’t be able to watch it when it debuts in the autumn – unless they subscribe to rival broadcaster and co-funder Amazon Prime. Viewers without a broadband internet connection won’t be able to see it at all.
It is possible that the BBC Worldwide collaboration with Amazon will be broadcast free to standard viewers at some point, but the MoS understands this is yet to be decided.
Made by the same production team as War And Peace, and written by award-winning American writer Oliver Goldstick, the drama is loosely based on Christian Dior’s creation of the iconic New Look in the 1940s and 1950s.
In the series, brothers Richard Coyle and Tom Riley create a revolutionary fashion style. But success is set against survival during the German occupation, when the family made a terrible bargain with the Nazis.
The drama, unveiled at last week’s Cannes TV festival, has already been commissioned for a second series.