Shanghai Dafeng Cotton Mill in the early 1980s. A Xiang, a female worker from the countryside, heard that Shanghai girls have the habit of wearing beautiful clothes in the competition, calling it "tailoring" and "cutting skirts", so she asked Suzuki, a self-employed clothes seller, to buy a beautiful red silk skirt to resist the female workers laughing at her being a countryman. Tao, a model worker, likes this red dress very much and quietly tries to compete with herself. A Xiang found Tao very beautiful in a red dress and invited her to the park to cut the skirt. But the shift supervisor didn't like the strapless red skirt, so Tao Xinger quietly added a white-collar subsidy to this red skirt. As a result, she was stripped by a cook with too many girlfriends.

Encouraged by his peers, Tao finally came to the park with the women workers. She summoned up her courage and walked alone in the wall of people in full view, boldly comparing with all kinds of colorful dresses and cutting all the beautiful dresses into pieces. Tao felt relaxed from cutting skirts and began to realize the bondage of old ideas to himself.

One day, Tao and his good friend missed a piece of cloth during the shift change, and it was unclear who was responsible. In order to maintain her reputation as a model worker in the factory, the leader even showed loyalty to friends in Ge Jia and Ge Jia. The women workers are whispering, and Tao Xinger feels very guilty when she knows it. She worked overtime and worked hard; When she knew that Ge Jia also wanted to go to college, she asked the shift supervisor to give Ge Jia a chance to take the exam, and gave Ge Jia the possibility to go to college during the exam. Unexpectedly, I found Tao's wish when I checked the test paper. Frank refused to accept Tao's secret gift and insisted on not going to school.

Dong Xiaoqin, the mechanic, was Tao Xinger's lover when he jumped the queue. Five years ago, when he was transferred back to Shanghai, he abandoned Tao for various reasons, but he still loved Tao. For five years, they have worked in the same workshop, facing each other day and night. However, Tao always refused to understand. After Dong Xiaoqin made many confessions to her, he had to be painfully transferred to the public security bureau. When Tao Xinger finally realized that she and others would have shortcomings and mistakes, she forgave Dong Xiaoqin.

In order to raise his position, A Xiang pretended to be his brother in Hong Kong, bought dresses and socks from Suzuki, saying they were made in Hong Kong and sold them to female workers at low prices. A Xiang couldn't make up the deficit when she announced her salary, so she had to sell her clothes to Suzuki. When the shift supervisor asked A Xiang on behalf of the organization, A Xiang burst into tears and said that he just wanted to spend money to buy an equal position, and he couldn't stand being ridiculed as a countryman. Tao Wei redeemed her clothes, and also reprimanded the mocking female workers. At the team meeting to help educate people not to look down on themselves, Tao unexpectedly reviewed her weakness of not being willing to admit her guilt publicly. She finally understood that young people in the 1980s should live more boldly and sincerely.