Plot

A small-town girl finally realizes her dream of becoming a famous supermodel but soon finds out that her glamorous new life has a price.

Set against the glittering backdrop of the glamorous but ruthless world of haute couture fashion, this is the story of a small-town girl with big dreams. Meghna always knew she was meant to be famous, but she was about to find out the hard way that success came at a price. Fashion is the tale of what happens when the price of success becomes too high.—Anonymous

Meghna Mathur, from a middle-class lifestyle in Chandigarh's Sector 17, wins a beauty contest and decides to become a model, much to the chagrin of her dad, who wants her to be a Chartered Accountant. Determined to succeed, she re-locates to Mumbai, where she initially lives with her maternal uncle Kuldip and his wife Santosh. When they find out that she has been appearing scantily-clad in magazines, they ask her to leave. She moves in with fellow-model Manav Bhasin and soon becomes the lead model of 'Panache,' replacing Shonali Gujral. Her decline begins when she has an affair with her boss, Abhijit Sarin, becomes pregnant, and gets fired for attempting to break up the Sarin family. Disgraced and publicly humiliated, will she decide to return home to her parents?—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

Aspiring model Meghna Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) lives in Chandigarh and expresses her wish to go to Mumbai and pursue her dream of becoming a supermodel. Meghna is a CA student, and her father wants her to join a local firm to complete her internship.

Against her dad Shobhit's (Raj Babbar) wishes, Meghna leaves her house with dreams in her eyes to strike it big in the modeling world. Meghna tells her father that she wants to have the freedom to pursue her own dreams. Shobhit is livid and says that Meghna has become arrogant after winning a local beauty contest.

She experiences some major difficulties in her initial days auditioning several times but being rejected. But she gets a good helping hand with an old acquaintance, Rohit (Ashwin Mushran), an aspiring gay designer who assists big shot designer Vinay Khosla (Harsh Chhaya). Rohit is not impressed with Meghna's portfolio as it looks very unprofessional and low grade. Rohit introduces Meghna to Shomu (Chitrashi Rawat) who is a casting agent. Shomu gets auditions for Meghna and charges a 20% commission on every job that she lands. She keeps bumping into another struggling model, Maanav (Arjan Bajwa) while making the rounds of modeling agencies for auditions. Meghna refuses to do any lingerie advertisements.

She visits Rahul Arora's (Samir Soni) fashion show where she comes face-to-face with reality of the major people in the industry including the reigning supermodel Shonali Gujral (Kangana Ranaut). She is mocked by the show choreographer Christine and is advised to visit hotshot photographer Kartik (Rohit Roy) for her portfolio. Vinay is Rahul's biggest rival, but Vinay never misses any of Rahul's fashion shows. Rohit also reveals that Rahul is gay but hides this from everyone. Anisha Roy (Kitu Gidwani) is head of modeling agency Profiles and MD of Panache. Abhijit is the owner of Panache and his wife Avantika is a socialite.

Kartik charges Rs 50,000 for a single photo-shoot and costumes are on top. Meghna pays an advance of Rs 7000 and is given a month to come up with the rest, else even the advance will be forfeited. To pay Kartik's high fee Meghna attends corporate functions as paid models and even shoots for a lingerie advertisement, all the while mentored by another small-time model Janet (Mugdha Godse). Meghna was assured by Shomu that the lingerie advertisement is only for Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Subsequently, Meghna's lingerie pictures appear on the cover of a magazine found by her relatives. Meghna becomes good friends with Maanav and even starts sharing his apartment after she faces accommodation problems.

Kartik completes the photo-shoot with Meghna and is impressed with her work. He refers Meghna to Anisha. Meghna is noticed by Anisha Roy who brings her to her boss, Abhijit Sarin's (Arbaaz Khan) notice. Abhijit is impressed by her ambitious nature and succeed at all costs attitudes. Panache's face is Shonali but though very successful, her drug abuse starts becoming a problem for her and subsequently for Panache. Just as Abhijit decides to put Meghna for a fashion show organized by Vinay Khosla a misunderstanding happens which leave's Meghna being replaced in that fashion show. She is left emotionally devastated and comforted by Abhijit. Abhijit then decides to terminate Shonali's contract and ropes in Meghna as Panache's new face. Shonali warns Meghna that she will lose herself just as she did.

Meghna becomes an overnight success which nips the budding relationship between her and Maanav. She also starts having an affair with Abhijit. Meanwhile, Janet grabs an opportunity of being designer Rahul Arora's (Samir Soni) showstopper. Rahul gets worried as his mother becomes increasingly doubtful of his sexual orientation and asks Janet to marry him though he tells her that his relationship with his boyfriend will be compromised to some extent.

Shonali, on other hand, has a wardrobe malfunction and her career ends. Her drug abuse gets worse, and she lands up at a rehab center. Meanwhile, Meghna becomes pregnant with Abhijit's child and reluctantly has an abortion due to the conditions in the contract. After realizing that she was deceived in her relationship, she talks about their relationship to Abhijit's wife Avantika (Suchitra Pillai-Malik) and Abhijit terminates Meghna's contract with Panache.

An angered Meghna, unable to believe what happened, resorts to alcohol to relieve herself. She gets into a verbal fight with Janet and on the same night attends a rave party where under the influence of cocaine, she unknowingly ends up in bed with a foreign man. When she comes to her senses, she feels guilty of her act and realizes how low she had fallen. She returns to her parents (Shobhit and Hrishitaa (Kiran Juneja)) in Chandigarh.

Broken and depressed Meghna lives in Chandigarh for more than a year, but she has lost all taste for life including her self-confidence. However, encouraged by her father, she goes back to Mumbai. There she befriends Janet again and models for Rohit's show. However, she freezes on stage and gets negative reviews from the whole industry and media. She visits Maanav to ask forgiveness and learns that he is engaged.

Shonali is shown on TV as a highly disturbed alcoholic on the streets. Meghna brings her home and takes it as a challenge to rehabilitate Shonali. She also gets an offer from Rahul to be his showstopper and accepts. One day before the show, Shonali goes missing from Meghna's home. Just before Meghna is to walk the ramp, she gets a call from the police that Shonali has been found dead apparently from a drug overdose. Meghna becomes frigid with sadness, but overcomes the grief and walks on the ramp, which not only revives her career but also heals her self-esteem.

She ultimately acknowledges that her ensuing success is not due to her own efforts to revamp herself, but due to Shonali and Shonali alone, for she was the one who instilled once again her newly found self-confidence and gave her a self-recognition in this so-called glamorous world of fashion. Meghna hence gives up her drinking and smoking habits. The movie ends with Meghna walking the ramp in Paris.