It is 1907 when Juliette Cladel, beguilingly pretty and refreshingly innocent, arrives in Paris to be launched by her sister into the world of haute couture. Beginning her fashion career at the famed House of Landelle, Juliette meets and falls in love with a dashing young Russian count, Nikolai Karasvin, then living la vie boheme as a sculptor. The two young lovers are separated by circumstances when Nikolai is called home to take up family duties and Juliette finds herself trapped by the Great War in Italy and in a loveless marriage. Not until peace has been restored can the two be reunited in Paris, she as a protegee of the great couturier Fortuny, he as a sculptor in earnest, his noble world having been destroyed by revolution.