Klein’s celebrated mock-documentary follows the career of Polly Maggoo, a fictional American fashion model who is pursued by both a French television producer and a prince. With its high-contrast black-and-white cinematography and its frenetic editing, the film satirizes both the look and the content of the world of haute couture. The opening fashion-show sequence sets the film’s comically abrasive tone by focusing on the latest collection of the hot Parisian designer Isidore Ducasse, who is labeled by one awestruck fashion editor "the poet of sheet-metal" for the riotous aluminum sculptures in which he has clad the models.