Clelia, a self-made woman coming from humble means, travels back to Turin, her hometown, to scout locations for the successful Roman atelier she works for. At the hotel, she encounters some upper middle-class women and she finds herself drawn into their friendships.

In the summer of 1942, during the Second World War, a group of young paratroopers from the Folgore Division, after having been subjected to a long and tiring training in Italy, was transported by air to the Libyan desert to cover the Italian-German front.