Plot

A chronicle of the interconnected lives of a group of people in the lead up to Paris Fashion Week.

A fashion show in Paris draws the usual bunch of people; designers, reporters, models, magazine editors, photographers. Lots of unconnected stories which all revolve around this show, and an all-star cast.—Rob Hartill

Paris, Fashion Week 1994.

All kind of models, designers, reporters, fashion editors... join together to present next year's trends. Kitty Potter (Kim Basinger) is an American reporter from Atlanta, Georgia who is in search of big news.

Sergio (Marcello Mastroianni), an Italian expedite living in Moscow, Russia, arrives in Paris and sends an identical Christian Dior neck tie to the president of the French Association of Fashion, Olivier de la Fontaine (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and meets with him in high secrecy. He disregards his wife Isabella de la Fontaine (Sophia Loren), who is mad at him and tries to avoid Kitty in the airport, but she sees him so he has to give the interview. They have a sandwich and then Sergio and Olivier leave the airport. Sergio doesn't realize that he is carrying Joe Flynn's (Tim Robbins) suitcase. Nearby, scruffy American journalist Anne Eisenhower (Julia Roberts) has lost her suitcase and she can't understand or speak any French, so she takes Sergio's luggage by mistake.

While Sergio and Olivier are together in a limo, the president dies while they are stuck in a traffic jam and Sergio runs away. When the chauffeur realizes that his passenger is dead, he cries for help, and Sergio jumps from a bridge so that a police officer doesn't catch him.

Cy Bianco (Forest Whitaker) is an eccentric fashion designer who is always changing his mind about his designs.

Milo O'Brannigan (Stephen Rea) is a photo journalist from Ireland covering Fashion Week. He is established as is a lazy, I-can't-be-bothered rock-'n'-roller who takes a photo of all the designers together, including Sonya Rykel (herself), and Jean-Paul Gualtier (himself).

Meanwhile, Isabella goes to the Richard Lacroix fashion show as if nothing had happened. After the show, where Christy Turlington (herself), Tatjana Patitz (herself), Naomi Campbell (herself), Helena Christensen (herself) and other models strut their stuff, Kitty will interview Gianfranco Ferré (himself), at the time head designer for haute couture house Christian Dior (himself).

At the hotel, Anne tries to contact people in the world of fashion without much success. As she and Joe share a luxurious hotel room, and she can't stand drinking, they end up making love. The next morning, she gets angry because he jumped to the occasion, leaving it as a one-night stand when she mentions it.

Watching the televised Issey Miyake show, Sergio sees Joe wearing his jacket. Kitty interviews Miyake (himself) as well.

Investigating Olivier's death, Paris Metro Police Inspector Tantpis (Jean Rochefort) and Inspector Forget (Michel Blanc) say that it's going to be easy to find who killed Olivier, as everybody hated him.

Meanwhile, Sergio moves from one fashion show to the other. He is always among the crowd, always in search of Isabella. When he finally approaches her, Isabella faints, with Kitty crying, "She's not dead! She's not dead!" again and again.

Fiona Ulrich (Lili Taylor) is an American photojournalist who interviews various designers.

Regina Krumm (Linda Hunt) is the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine who wants to sign Milo. He asks her to go to her knees and beg. When she complies, he photographs her, so she dismisses him while calling him names. He laughs all the way. Later, as a freelance photographer, Milo makes an editorial advertisement for LO footwear, with Linda Evangelista (herself), Carla Bruni (herself), Kristen Fick (herself), Adriana Karembeu (herself), and Greta Cavazzoni (herself). Milo will do the same trick, this time photographing American reporter Sissy Wanamaker (Sally Kellerman) who offered him sex and also wants him to sign for an important position.

Nina Scant (Tracey Ullman) is a reporter from the British Vogue who falls victim to Milo in the same way as she is promised sex in exchange for a cover story.

Sergio, aka Sergei, finally finds Isabella at a dinner party where Kitty is interviewing Cher (herself). It is revealed here that Sergei and Isabella were lovers when they were younger back in Italy, but as they belonged to a Communist party, he left after their wedding night. He is saying that he still loves her, when they are interrupted by somebody offering her sympathies as a recently widow. They will meet the following day at 16:00 hours at Le Pensevr's statue.

Although he is married to a woman, Cy has a gay lover and they share a joint outside at night.

At the hotel, Sergio gets Joe Flynn's copy key, posing as Flynn.

Cy does his fashion show on an underground Paris Metro train. Two models fight.

Pilar (Rossy de Palma) works for famous French designer Simone Lowenthal (Anouk Aimée), who has problems with Jack Lowenthal (Rupert Everett) because they and the company are bankrupt.

Slim Chrysler (Lauren Bacall) is another American designer who is on the payroll of Clint Lammeraux (Lyle Lovett), a Texan investor who worries about his own future.

Cy and his lover meet their partners, who are also cheating on one another. While they are about to fight, Kitty appears and interviews them.

Major Hamilton (Danny Aiello) and his wife Louise (Teri Garr) are an American couple on vacation in Paris who decide to attend the fashion shows, while Louise takes her free time to shop in the various expensive shops. She purchases a large quantity of lingerie, for both herself... and her husband who is later revealed to be a cross-dresser.

When Nina, Sissy, and Regina all learn from each other that they were victims of Milo's scam, they turns the tables on their tormentor by stealing his camera and offer to negotiate the return of his incriminating camera in exchange for him telling him his story.

Isabella and Sergio go to bed, but after her striptease, he falls sleep, so she leaves in frustration.

Simone makes the last preparations for her fashion show, wherein the models, including Yvette Horner (herself) wear cowboy boots... and nothing else. Simone for LO presents a catwalk of nude models to the music of The Cranberries' Pretty. First confused and then fed up, Kitty leaves, giving her microphone to her long-suffering French assistant Sophie Choiset (Chiara Mastroianni), who gladly takes the position in front of the camera.

The inspectors say that Olivier died because of the ham sandwich he ate, which got stuck in his esophagus, so he choked to death.

Anne and Joe say goodbye as they both prepare to return to the USA, both better dressed this time and they agree to keep their several night stand a secret between the two of them.

Over the end credits, Olivier's funeral is held. We see some naked children playing, following the new fashion of Simone, the trend of appreciating the human body and showing it without ornaments. Sergio has fallen asleep again, so he's not in time to talk to Isabella, who dresses in black.

The film ends with images of several catwalks.