Gunnar Hede, a young Swedish man, wants to become a professional musician, but when his father suddenly dies he is pressured by his family to take over the family business of raising and selling reindeer.

Celeste de Givray is renowned throughout Europe as the most beautiful and best-dressed model in all Paris. Her press agent DuPont concocts an attention-getting publicity scheme by having Celeste undergo cosmetic surgery, then unveiling her "new" face at a posh fashion show. But thanks to a delay in the surgery, DuPont is forced to hired a substitute for Celeste, a look-alike American girl named Lulu Dooley

In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.