Oliver Goldstick

In 1947 in France, as the country worked to recover from the ravages of World War II, fashion houses led by the likes of Christian Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga were developing styles that would change the way women dressed for generations to come. It is against that backdrop of haute couture that The Collection is set. Co-commissioned by Amazon U.K. and France 3 from Lookout Point, the international co-pro was created and written by Oliver Goldstick, who exec produces the Freeform hit Pretty Little Liars and whose list of writing and producing credits includes Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives.

WS: Where did the idea for The Collection come from?
GOLDSTICK: When I was working on Ugly Betty, I came [to the U.K.] on holiday during the hiatus period, and my agent at William Morris Endeavor said several people wanted to meet me. I met with Kate Croft, who was then a development executive, and we just hit it off. We started looking for a project to do together and became e-mail friends for about two and a half years. Then [when I returned to the U.K.], Kate handed me the companion book to the very successful exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum called The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947–1957. She said, “This is our series.” I said, “No, don’t do this to me!” I’d done two shows that were fashion adjacent, if not set in the fashion world, and it’s a very difficult world to keep afloat. People are dismissive of the fashion world; it’s considered a vain pursuit, and they want to see those who work in it satirized, not truly explored. Kate said she thought this could be different because of the era and the impact of the time. So I said, “Let me read it.” I went back to the States, and I did a lot of research. I read several books. And I was hooked. There was one in particular, And the Show Went On, by Alan Riding, which was about the arts [in France] during the [Nazi] occupation. I had read the bios of Balenciaga and Dior and I already knew about Chanel. This is a very vital period. People know what the “New Look” is, they know the silhouette, but they don’t recognize what was going on in France. The war was not over for France. There was practically a civil war for two years. Different governments took control every three or four months. It was a very volatile time. And I was fascinated by the idea of reinvention. After the war, there was an influx of immigrants in Paris. So you had this great mix of people, this international community, and a country whose reputation had been tarnished by the war and that needed desperately to be resuscitated.

That worked as a metaphor to me. [The characters] could be making wheels, tires, watches, perfumes, it doesn’t matter, the fashion is just the gravy. The couture is visually a feast, but [the focus is on] the desperation and the need to rise from the ashes.

WS: You’ve spent most of your career in the U.S. system, with shows made for American cable or broadcast networks. What’s this international co-pro been like for you?
GOLDSTICK: The thing is, you keep your head down and do your work. I have to be concerned, obviously, that as a writer I have an audience, but I have to be most concerned that I have a product. And that it speaks to me. Thornton Wilder, a great American playwright, when asked, Why did you write this play, he’d say, “Because I wanted to see it tonight. I was in the mood to go to the theater, and I wanted to see a play that I would watch.” His plays weren’t all the same. And you couldn’t predict what a Thornton Wilder play was. I relate to that. I feel like I’ve worked on shows that were fashion-centric, but I love history, I love novels, I love the idea of being able to tell a story.

We don’t have this luxury in America [to be able to] write eight episodes before we start filming. That doesn’t happen. Sometimes we’re lucky to get a second or third one done before the cameras start rolling. But more or less you’re playing catch-up from the time you start production. And you’re robbed of something. You’re robbed of the ability to go back and plant something—a great moment between two characters that can pay off three episodes later. You’re robbed of the ability to have foresight into where this story is going: I know what she does in the last episode—like Hedda Gabler with that gun—so I can sow the seeds in the first and second episodes. We don’t have that luxury in the American system. So this has been refreshing and exciting and compelling.

WS: Eight episodes sounds much more manageable than your American shows!
GOLDSTICK: That’s the system. I think it’s all changing now. It was dictated by the idea that success was measured by syndication and having to make sure the show sold in multiple markets once you were done producing it, and then the shillings, the shekels, the francs, the centimes, the euros, you name it, rolled in. Now, obviously, the business models have changed, with the different platforms and how people are viewing. Pretty Little Liars, we do 22, 24 episodes; [some viewers will] watch those in a weekend.  Those of us who have been writing for this long, we recognize there’s a tectonic shift in how people are receiving programming. People say the landscape is too cluttered, there are too many programs, I don’t know what to watch. And I think, well, yes and no. There aren’t as many movies out as there used to be. And you knew which movies were for you. Television now, we have a menu. The same way Amazon with their books says, if you like this, you might like this, and you might like this. I feel television programming is the same way now.